990fxa-ud7 Raid-1 Windows 7 Boot drive won't install

[Xenocide122]

I have a 990fxa-ud7 that I have been running for a few months with an old 500gb drive and decided to try and setup a RAID-1 for my boot drive from two 2TB drives that I have. I setup the raid in the BIOS according to the manual, I have the Drives in SATA ports 4&5 I created the RAID-1 in the RAID setup but once i start installing windows i get to the drive screen, load the RAID drivers from the DVD and it says it cannot install windows to my drive.. i see my drive and have tried creating a new partition and it creates a 100MB partition and the rest in a different partition, i have tried formatting both, deleting them all and trying again, making 90GB partitions and formatting, restarting trying it all again, but have not been able to have it let me install windows on my drive (NEXT Button is grayed out). Am I missing a step or setting my RAID up incorrectly? When setting up my RAID I select RAID 1 leave all the setting as default and select my 2 drives, it tells me i can name it or leave default and i leave it as default, asks me to wipe the MBR (if i select anything but CTRL+Y it stops the raid setup and send me back to one of the main screens) and then asks me if i want to se the size or leave default and I leave default.

I only have the 2 hard drives and a DVD drive plugged in, I do have a couple of other SATA drives I will be connecting internally later ()after i successfully setup windows)  and have also tried SATA ports 0&1 for my raid with no luck.

Like I said I am following the manual word for word on setting up the RAID in the BIOS and When creating my RAID. I am at work but will make sure to get back with any other things I try when i get home tonight.

Thanks for the help!
-Xeno

[F5BJR]

*
If you have a 500 GB running in single ,  you can :

1 - Connect the 3 disks ( the old and the 2 * new disks )

2 - boot the old OS , use the AMD RAID Windows utility for mount your 2 * new disks in RAID mode

3 - Transfert your OS with ACRONIS or similar program ( also old MAXBlast 4 if your RAID is < 2TB and if you have a Maxtor disk )

4 - Remove the old disk and start the OS with the 2 * disks in RAID mode

Pierre

[Xenocide122]

F5BJR,

I had thought about that and i may do it... i really did want a fresh install to play on and I may even install fresh on my single drive and image that over as a last resort. There is something about beating a problem though that really makes me feel good, so i would really like to kick this issues butt right now!

Thanks for the tip!

-Xeno

[Xenocide122]

Ok so after messing around for a couple of days and testing my results a few times I am fairly sure i have it figured out.

 Ok so first make sure the drives are connected to SATA ports 0 & 1

 Update BIOS settings:
 OnChip SATA Controller -- Enabled
 OnChip SATA Type -- RAID
 OnChip SATA Port 4/5 -- As SATA Type
 OnChip SATA RAID5 Support -- DISABLED

 save and reboot

 While rebooting look for the RAID Option ROM screen and press CTRL-F to enter the RAID Setup utility.

 Setup your raid:
 Press 2 (LD View/LD Define Menu)
 Press CRTL-C (to create your RAID)
 Set RAID Mode to RAID 1 (press SPACEBAR to change settings)
 Initilization -- FULL
 Select the drives you want in your raid (Press SPACEBAR next to the drives to change it from N to Y)

 Press CTRL-Y to save

 The next steps are up to you but this is what i did:
 Press any key to leave the default name
 Press CTRL-Y to erase MBR
 Press any key to use maximum capacity

 Now you can exit and boot to your windows install disk

 When you are in the drive selection screen for setting up win7 choose Load Drivers and load the latest RAID drivers, my Motherboard dvd had them but they are outdated so i grabbed the latest from the website and put thme on a usb drive and win7 saw my usb drive just fine (using a Sandisk 16gb drive)

 Once that is done select your drive and install windows.

 One issue i had was that i was getting a message about not being able to boot... drove me a bit nuts until i realized i still had my usb drive still in the computer... pulled it out and win7 setup did the rest!

 Thanx for all the help!
 -Xeno

[furball zen]

I realize this is an older thread, but Win7 is still around...

It sounds like the Next button was greyed out because you had not formatted the drives yet after it created the partition for OS backup, or you were selecting the wrong one.

Hopes this helps someone down the road.