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I changed the registry value of "msahci" to 0 (this enables the AHCI drivers) but when I changed the sata mode to "raid" I got a glimpse of a bsod with an error message of some sort but then it restarts before I can take note.
Before I re-install vista, does anyone know a reg hack to change the sata mode to "raid" rather than "ahci" ??
I can confirm that doing the registry hack to enable the ahci drivers did not cause any problems for me. I only noticed the following:
- Slower bootup time.
- Bios still showed sata mode as "disabled", meaning IDE mode (for my mobo).
Probably best for me to take advantage of this and replace my OS/data drive (currently samsung 500Gb), with another samsung 1Tb disk and start from scatch.
Anyways I'd appreciate any input.
Jack
(Edit) PS: It seems that it is best to always choose "raid" for the sata mode option so you'll have the flexability of adding a raid volume later (this is advised from the intel website). This is still the case if you have just 1 sata disk.
yes, I agree that setting RAID in the BIOs is best if even remotely thinking about a RAID option i the future, only advantage of IDE mode is that many older imaging programs prefer this, so easier to make images of the system. AHCI offers minimal benefits so RAID is the way to go.
I don't know any way to enable RAID in the registry, my advice is to start afresh and use your experience thus far to make a nice clean MC setup.
As I expected, the ACHI registry hack won't have any success with RAID mode, but it's an interesting tip nevertheless!! AHCI and RAID modes are very difrerent so the blue screen was to be expected (Inaccessible Boot Device is what it will be saying BTW).
I'd use your existing 500GB drive as the O/S drive, and put all your 1TB drives into your RAID 5 array. The more drives in a RAID 5 array, the less percentage of total data space lost!! Not sure how many SATA RAID ports you have though.... EDIT: I see you have 6 native ports, so yes, go 1 x 500GB and 4 x 1TB, personally I'd go 2 x 500GB RAID1 (100GB for O/S and rest for music) and 4 x 1TB in RAID 5 for media. But then, I love lots of redundancy after a my unfortunate multi drive Xmas Eve data disaster!! (luckily got most of it back, but it wasn't pleasant).
Cheers
TiggerK
__________________ I believe life is all about Doing Things, not Having Things. (Except my MCE Box!)
I have changed the sata control in my bios to "Raid" and reinstalled vista onto my new 1Tb Samsung drive which I partitioned C drive = 100Gb and E drive 900Gb (approx values as real values are a little less).
I can confirm that the f6 disk (raid drivers), was not required with my Home Premium edition and from what I've read its not required for Vista at all.
I've also created a Raid 5 volume (drive F), which is made up of 4 x 1Tb Samsung drives I was a little dissapointed that the size of my volume was just a little over 2Tb ?
The bad news is that since doing all this I've had several BSOD's and they've all been due to the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.
I did install the latest build 8.5.0.1032 the read me file with the download does mention a lot of unresolved issues so I guess I'll just wait for the next update and see what happens.
So far though if I just leave the computer on I dont get any BSOD's until I do something that would require Hdd activity (I think), so I've turned off all screen savers and sleeping.
Just another update for anyone who may be interested.
After many, many BSOD's which were all due to iastor.sys (intel matrix storage controller), I've now decided to re-create the raid volume from the matrix storage console rather than the bios.
When I created the volume from the bios it gave me a total volume size of 2047GB but after deleting this (from the bios) and recreating with the matrix storage console I get a volume total of 2795GB...That seems more like the total I was expecting.
Something else that I noticed is that within the bios it shows the version No of intel matrix storage controller to be 6.0.0.1022, I'm realy only thinking that this is so out of date compared to the version I installed after the OS installation that it may be un-usable with newer hard drives ??? maybe it would be worthwhile to use an f6 raid driver pre-install disk (but have to admit I dont remember seeing an oppurtunity to use an f6 disk).
Anyway I've created the new raid volume and disk management is now formatting it, it should be finished about 4am tomorrow.
Its worth noting that I again took the option of initializing it with the "GPT" (Guide Partition Table) option as opposed to the "MBR" (Master Boot Record).
I hope there is no conflict aswell between the boot disk being MBR and my raid volume being GPT ??
Its worth noting that I again took the option of initializing it with the "GPT" (Guide Partition Table) option as opposed to the "MBR" (Master Boot Record).
I hope there is no conflict aswell between the boot disk being MBR and my raid volume being GPT ??
Jack
You cannot have a volume bigger than 2TB under MBR. With GPT it is some Exabytes.
Nope, no conflicts there.
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Its interesting to also note that the total volume size when created by the bios version of matrix storage controller was 1 hard drive to low as each of my 1 Tb hard drives show up in bios as 931.5Gb.
However each hard drive showed up in the bios and Matrix storage console as being "Normal" and showing the correct size.
After installing the latest version of Matrix Storage Controller (8.5.0.1032), should I see this version in the bios ? as I can confirm it is the version showed in the device manager.
My thinking is that for the latest driver to show up in the bios would require the good people at Gigabyte to update this in their bios revision ?
Its interesting to also note that the total volume size when created by the bios version of matrix storage controller was 1 hard drive to low as each of my 1 Tb hard drives show up in bios as 931.5Gb.
That's just due to the way HDD manufacturer's market their products. Every 1tb drive is actually only 931.5gb of usable space. It's because they use base10 to determine the size for marketing but binary numbering actually determines the size.
Thanks dgaust, but either way when I created a raid volume within the bios it was approx 931.5Gb lower than when I created it within the matrix storage console.
Disk management finished formatting the raid5 volume this morning and I thought I would re-start my PC (just something that I like to do whever I've done something major) but the system just hung on the "shutting down" screen.
It had also done this several times on my earlier attempt of creating my raid volume, so I was dissapointed and am thinking I've still got the same issues that I've reported earlier but atleast this time I believe I have the correct volume size.
I opened up the matrix storage console and thought that I'd verify the data of my volume, when a pop-up box appeared, telling me that this volume had'nt been initialized yet, so I pressed OK and its now doing it.
I started the initializing at about 0830 and its only 78% complete now.
I thought that I had inialized it within the vista disk management, that was where it asked me to choose between GPT or MBR.
I was'nt given any options within the matrix storage console.
