78LMT-S2P mobo & X4 965 cpu - won't install RAID0 2xSSD & Win7

[petspy]

I filed this with tech support in Taiwan and pray they have an solution so I don't have to return this mobo and start all over again *sigh*  

I'm trying to RAID0(stripe) these new drives from a new Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 install DVD. The 2 SSD's are plugged into SATA0 & SATA1 position (I also tried SATA0 & SATA2 positioned), the DVD Drive is SATA5. The Bios is configured to use SATA0-03 for RAID, and SATA4-5 for IDE.

Chapter 4 Appendix of your manual says to press Ctrl-F to enter RAID Option ROM Utility - but no such option in the bios exists. later your manual says B. Installing Windows 7/Vista: that the RAID driver for Windows 64-bit: BootDrv/SBxxxW7/RAID/W76A however when the Windows 7 install option "Hide Drivers that are not compatible with this hardware on this computer" is check marked, no driver is listed, when I uncheck it I see the same driver listed 3 times and a console driver. when i try any of these four entries the "extend" option to create the raid between the two drives clearly listed is not available. I tried both the files on your included CD Disk, and the latest files from your Website on a USB drive, and neither set were acceptable.

I don't know if this is relevant, but I'll include other install attempts;

It's worth noting that I tried installing Windows 7 Ultimate SR1 to a single 128GB SDD on the AHCI and on IDE/SCSI and both worked without any drivers or problems. It's worth noting that when I tried to convert the IDE install to AHCI your mobo would not accept the simple registry fix that should allow you to migrate a IDE installed Windows 7 to work on an AHCI bus. It's worth noting that a fresh Windows XP Pro SR3 install to your IDE bus worked, but when I attempted a fresh install of Windows XP Pro SR3 to ADHI the SDD disk would not boot on it's own with or without an offset partition.

Clearly this motherboard/bios does not offer the range of support one would expect in 2012, however if I can get the RAID0 to work with your guidance, then maybe I will keep the board. It's only the RAID0/AHCI between these two drives that has me disappointed with your instructions and/or product, and regretting my purchase as affordable RAID0 was the main reason I bought your product. Please don't waste my time with a Teir-1 tech going through a checklist, as I've already tried everything possible from your documentation and web sight, so only a Teir-3 person can save me now.


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Model Name : GA-78LMT-S2P (rev. 5.0)
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M/B Rev : 5.0
BIOS Ver : F2
Serial No. :
Purchase Dealer : CompUSA/TigerDirect
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VGA Brand : Nvidia      Model : 9500gt
CPU Brand : AMD      Model : Phenom II X4 965      Speed : 3.4GHz
Operation System : Win 7 64-bit      SP : 1
Memory Brand : Samsung      Type : DDR3
Memory Size : 2x4      Speed : 1600
Power Supply : 420 W
Other Details:  two OCZ Agility 4 128GB SDD updated to 1.52 latest firmware.

[petspy]

as nobody got back yet from gigabyte i tried something else;

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx#2

since the gigabyte drivers were worthless, i tried amd's and made a bit more progress.
the Ctrl+F menu now comes up when RAID is enabled in the Bios, however it won't let
me define anything.  option 1,2,3 don't respond and are needed to define the bios raid.
i even switched from a USB to a PS2 keyboard - still nothing but 4 and exit works here.

other good but ultimately futile issues are the amd drivers were accepted by win7ult
during install, but what good do they do me if i can't define the 2 drive raid in my bios.
so now i'm back to just running win7ult64 in ahci solo... sux having to reinstall everything
just to try some new solution, so at this point i'm still waiting for gigabyte to chime in,
as i've run out of ideas short of returning this mobo and never buying another gigabyte
product.. i mean what good is this forum when nobody from gigabyte really works here.



good news, someone in Taiwan woke up and took pity on me and wrote back (he didn't know about my amd driver adventure yet);

Dear customer,
Please use attached driver and follow procedure below:
1) Extract it to a folder on USB flash drive. Make sure SATA hard drives connect to SATA port 0-1, SATA DVD drive connect to SATA port 5 ( refer to mother board manual page 7 diagram to locate SATA ports ).
2) Reset bios to load fail-safe defaults and load optimized defaults, change on chip SATA type to Raid mode under integrated peripherals in bios, change first boot device from floppy to CDrom, insert Win7 installation disk, save setup exit.
3) System will restart, go to AMD raid bios create Raid array save setup system will continue boots, when message show boot from CD/DVD press any key, at this point press enter key, Win7 setup screen will show.
4) When reach the point Win7 ask for install drive, browse to the folder on USB flash drive which has the extracted SATA Raid driver install it, Win7 will recognize the Raid drive and continue to complete installation.
Best regards,
Gigabyte technical support team.

http://ggts.gigabyte.eu/FileList/1271803/sb710win7x64raid.rar

I'll try it early tomorrow and report here if any progress was made.  it's getting late in USA and I'm too tired for another disappointment.  

[petspy]

I could not sleep so I tried again.  turns out all the support guy in taiwan sent me were the AMD files i already knew worked, but he didn't address the issue of why the raid bios itself would not allow me into it's menu.  he suggested i do a reset of bios to fail safe defaults, and load optimized defaults, change scsi from ide to raid and boot order to cdrom then hdd.  even with all that factory defaulting the amd raid menu fails to work.  only option 4 is active and displays:

AHC I HB MMIO Base Address:  FE02F000

which means nothing to me.  so i wrote taiwan again, and they probably give me more things i've already tried to do... *sigh*

[Vezina]

Have you tried th RAID drivers from AMD website ?!
Here is the link ->  http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx
I haven t read all the text ,but looks like improper driver.

Description:
Package Includes:
                      AMD SB7xx RAID Drivers
                      AMD SB8xx RAID Drivers
                      AMD SB9xx RAID Drivers
                      AMD A-Series APU Chipset RAID Drivers
                      AMD E-Series APU Chipset RAID Driver

[petspy]

thanks for posting, but as i had already written, i tried the gigiayte dvd drivers (didn't work) the gidabyte website drivers(didn't work) the amd drivers(worked but...) the gigabyte support provided drivers (worked but... same as amd files).

at issue is NOT the windows drivers to install that OS to a raid pair,

the issue is the raid pairing software in the bios itself does not allow me in to it's menu tree to select the drives for a raid.  my bios is current, the drives are in and working (i can access both of them thru windows in ahci which is the same encoding as raid) i even reloaded the amd raid management files from an ahci/scsi drive, i reset the bios to default then optimized as support instructed, and still get nothing working on that screenshot menu i posted earlier.

option 1,2,3 (numlock on or off, regular keys or keypad, F1 F2 F2 instead of number)
don't respond and are needed to define the bios raid.
i even switched from a USB to a PS2 keyboard - still nothing but 4 and ESC exit works here.

being able to select 2 drives for a raid pair should not be this difficult
i was doing it with Adaptec ISA bus raid controllers 15 years ago
while these gigabyte techs were kids at home watching ninja turtle cartoons.

anyway, while waiting for tech to give me more things to try that are not relevant to the problem,
i'll try to locate an old USB external 1.44 floppy disk drive and see if I can flash the mobo bios from
Version F2(current) to F3a(beta) which should not matter but it's the only thing left i have not tried.

I honestly have no idea what this means - nor if it's relevant to what i'm attempting to do;
http://www.gigabyte.us/support-downloads/faq-page.aspx?fid=1526&pid=4125
since doing a raid0 with 2x128gb ssd's is really common now,
it would a crime if this "shadow memory" nonsense was the culprit,
particularly when i populated this mobo with 2x4gb RAM sticks,
which is the maximum it's 2 slots and older cpu/bridge can handle.

[Vezina]

I have to say i have never used a RAID as i have never made a crossfire or SLI system ,even though i had the opportunity.
Under XP you could make software RAID ,in this way you could easily move the HDD-s across board/controllers..
Having in mind that the RAID on this boards it s not REAL/HW RAID i wonder if you could very well try the software approach if this is still available under Windows 7.

Most probable Gigabyte support will fix the issue ,maybe they weren t even aware of the fact some people use RAID on AMD
The support for AMD motherboards on all manufacturers is quite strange in the last 3 years ,small market maybe.
They(all manufacturers) needed one year to replace the AHCI BIOS even though AMD had released it for some time already.And the performance brought by this specific AHCI update was quite noticeable for SSD-s.
They may give you some beta BIOS i think.

I hope you will get your issue fixed and that you will keep this thread updated so we all know the outcome.
Good luck!

[petspy]

Vezina thanks for keeping us company - since nobody from Gigabyte will.

here's what I got from our "english as a second language" support staff;

Dear customer,
Please make sure you have two identical drives connect to SATA port 0-1, you can check if both drive were detected in bios under advance bios features, hard disk boot priority before create Raid 0 Array ( if only single drive shows Raid array not able to be create).
Do attempt use the driver we sent and redo Raid configuration by following our instruction for further testing on system. We have no known issue on Raid configuration with our driver.
If two drive were detected in bios and problem still persists, you may need to low format those two drives and try again.
Best regards,
Gigabyte tech support team.

1.  i already told them what ports and what identical drives i was using.
2.  both drives are clearly seen by the bios while in non-raid mode - I'm using both of them now as I write this.
3.  the "do not attempt... Following our instructions" sentence makes no sense at all.
4.  YOU may not have any known issues - but i sure as hell do.

so the only thing i got out of this was to do a "low format" of these two drives,
which I'm sure won't matter, will take hours, but I have to humor them for now.
I'll try it this evening as I need to use the computer and drives in non raid today.

It just kills me how this $35 mobo is now costing me $350 worth of my time.

BTW you should never do a low level format of any SSD drive, rather to use "sanitary erase";
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?69503-How-to-use-Sanitary-Erase
other SSD makers may advocate other solutions that still avoid the LLF you might do on a HDD.
  

[petspy]

I backed up my single drive ahci win7 install to a secondary drive, and did the LLF on both of my new SSD's

I then followed all the advice support gave me, and it's all the same bullcrap.  the AMD Raid bios menu will not
accept any 1,2,3 menu entries needed to link the two drive before the OS can be installled between them.
more frustrating is gigabyte's stupid splash graphic on boot obscures all the boot posting messages, so while
I can see from post it recognized both drives for about a quarter of a second I can't photograph it as proof.

since I can only return the SSD to the maker for a replacement, and not to the reseller for a refund or credit,

I will return the gigabyte motherboard for a refund and buy some other not-gigabyte AM3+ board.

lack of support here, irrational Award and AMD bios on this product, Taiwan ESL support from gigabyte, I can only conclude;

"you get what you pay for"  -  best of luck to other gigabyte product owners - as I no longer want to be counted among you.  

[Vezina]

I wonder if what you want works on the 970A-UD3 board .
I personally find good value in UD3 Gigabyte boards ,but  i am not a RAID user.
Overall Gigabyte boards are ok compared to other offers at similar prices.
Keep in mind the board you are using is a low end.

Good luck !