GA-880GA-UD3H need to add RAID long after Win7 install - how?

[fergyh]

Had a motherboard failure so have upgraded to new board (as above).
Config is 3 SATA drives - first 1 = Win7, other 2 (were) in Raid-1 array on old board.  Now want to setup Raid-1 for them on this board, which gets me in Catch-22 territory: -
- if setup in BIOS defined as IDE, Win7 boots fine, but I have 3 separate disks (as you'd expect)
- if BIOS setup is RAID-enabled (with or without the Raid-1 defined) then Windows gets knickers twisted and eventualy fails to boot (even though its disk is NOT going to be any part of the Raid setup).

Everything I can find points to adding the drivers into Win7 for the onboard SATA/Raid chip, DURING the OS install - but that was a year ago... and I don't really want to re-install WIndows/patches/52 other SW products all over again....

Tell them there is a way???!! I mean I have the drivers - just need to patch them into Windows somehow - is that too hard to ask?

[absic]

Hi,

when you get into windows (via IDE Mode) you will need to tweak the registry so you can reboot in AHCI/Raid Mode as, by default, Windows disables this option.

If you check here: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/ it will tell you how to do that. You shouldn't need the AMD AHCI drivers as I feel the ones that come with Windows are actually better but, if you decide to install them you can do so after you reboot the PC.

Once you have enabled AHCI Mode you should then be able to set-up your RAID Array.

[fergyh]

Thank! works a treat, but only to  a point....

This enables me to set the BIOS to AHCI mode, but on setting it to RAID, I'm back to square one - Windows refuses to boot and spends 15-20 mins trying to do some sort of repair before giving up...

Any more ideas anyone?

[absic]

Hi again,

sorry my bad what you need to do is.......

Switch your Primary Hard Drive to one of the GSATA2 ports and set the controller to AHCI Mode

With the SATA3 ports enable RAID and then for SATA 4/5 set these to IDE. Connect your DVD/CD drive(s) to the SATA3_4 and/or SATA3_5 ports

Use the SATA3_0 to SATA3_3 ports for your RAID array.

Hope this helps a bit more.

[fergyh]

Beat me to it absic - I've just logged in again to complete the picture and you got there before me - I'd guessed from studying lots of other sites and posts that this might work.

As I see it, the key is to put your C: drive on another controller than the one you're trying to configure - then on reboot with the target hardware reset in BIOS to RAID, Windwows magically 'finds' some more hardware to load drivers for, and away we go...

Thanks for the help though - I might have got there in the end, but this sure is a lot quicker!!