Vista x64 finally up on RAID (nForce4) ...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jon Davis
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J

Jon Davis

Well, after at least twenty or so failed or invalid installs of Windows
Vista, I finally got Windows Vista x64 installed straight to my RAID array
(nForce4). I had tried every combination ... boot with DVD, insert CD-ROM or
USB drive or floppy with RC1 drivers or Beta 2 drivers or XP x64 drivers ...
install XP x64 on secondary hard drive or extended partition, boot from it,
then install Vista on the primary partition, .. etc.

The last one that I didn't try, and after this it was going to be all over
for me, was to get XP x64 installed straight to the Primary Partition of the
RAID array, with all other hard drives physically disconnected, then install
Vista over the top of that from within XP. I had tried doing as much before
but with XP running from the Extended Partition (but the boot loaders on
the primary partition). This didn't work, this is where I got the
0x?0000007B error. But this had me suspicious; what is XP x64 full install
w/ its RAID drivers was on the *same* partition as the boot loader?

So I tried it tonight as a final, last ditch effort before deleting all
burns and extracts of the Vista RC1 ISO, to install XP x64 on the Primary
Partition of my RAID array with all other drives disconnected. I also
decided to permanently install my new floppy drive that I bought just for
this but hadn't really installed it (left it hanging out of the case the one
or two prior times I installed XP on the RAID array). With XP booted and
running, I ran the Vista setup, but then I got an error saying that the
source files were corrupt. I extracted the ISO to the hard drive and tried
again, it still didn't work. I then rebooted (to a different build of XP on
one of the disconnected drives since this temp XP build didn't have the
network drivers installed), re-downloaded the ISO, then extracted the ISO to
the hard drive, then rebooted back to the Primary partition on the RAID
array, then tried Vista setup again from the new extract of the ISO, and it
worked. (Phew!! .. that was a mouthful) After some Googling I concluded that
apparently the initial ISO release of Vista was a corrupted release or
something.

Anyway, Vista went through all the setup and reboot processes and I am
actually writing this within Vista on my primary partition of my RAID array.
Oh, by the way, I did NOT use ANY Vista drivers--neither nVidia's Vista Beta
2 drivers nor their Vista RC1 drivers. I only used nVidia's XP x64 drivers
that I put on the floppy drive to install XP x64 onto my RAID array.

Yay me. Now I go to sleep.

Jon
 
Hi Jon,

First sleep well...after that, could you please tell me which RAID Bios
version you have.

I have the same MB as you have with a single disk on an IDE and four SATA
disks in a RAID0 configuration. I got both Vista (RC1 x64) and XP (Prof x64)
bootable but only because Vista is installed on my (slow) IDE disk (which is
the one with the MBR). I got Vista to 'see' the RAID array ONLY by installing
some old XP 64 raid software (see below for versions) but it absolutely
refuses to install on the RAIDed partitions.

Furthermore I must NOT UPDATE the storage drivers for then the RAID array
becaumes invisible again. Fortunately, it is not destroyed but I had to
re-install Vista anew, again using the old x64 drivers, to fix it.

SO now I am running the OS from an old, slow IDE disk. This is not a big
problem as it is perfectly ok to install the bulky applications (and games)
on a fast, RAIDed partition. (ditto the paging-files.), Still this is hardly
perfect and the constantly customizing of software installations, I can well
do without.

I must say that I find your solution to the problem ingeneous because of its
profound logic, by removing its options you forced Vista to do what you
wanted it to do. Good one, but maybe not one completely without risk, hence
my question about the details of your driver versions.

(I know mine are not the latest but flashing bios's on a system that it is
up and running fine is another thing I can do without)

Thanks already,

Stephen


Some version info:

MB: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum, Bios V3.6

Working but limited and out-of-date version combo (SII3114 and Vista RC1):

RAID Bios: NVIDIA Raid 4.84
Device manager:
NVIDIA RAID Class Cpntroller Version 5.10.2600.534
NVIDIA Serial ATA RAID Controller Version 5.10.2600.534
 
OK I have an MSI K8n-neo4-F

And I have been having the same problem; I finally gave up, and broke my
raid 0 set
And installed RC1 on one of my sata drives, just so I did not need to use an
IDE to install it on,
Could explain your procedure you used in more detail, I do not have XP64 so
I will need to use RC1 32bit
But I would still like to give it a shot, THANKS,
 
Hi Dave,

Please note that although my Vista installation can access the RAID, it is
itself installed on a separate 'simple' disk (PATA or SATA doesn't matter,
both work under the IDE), so it is hardly perfect. However during my various
trials I did notice the following: there appears to be a clear difference
between the drivers Vista can support during the installation fase and the
'installed' fase. When I install from the CD-drive (boot from it), I can load
the RAID drivers OK, but the RAIDed partitions ARE NOT VISIBLE to INSTALL on
but after installation completion they ARE VISIBLE and completely ok to work
with. When I install from disk (running XP), I do get the choice to install
on one of the RAIDed partitions and installation proceeds normally untill it
reboots at which point is looses sight of the array again and FAILS miserably.

I suggest you try Jon's ingeneous solution: disconnect all non-RAID disks,
install XP and install Vista after that (I don't know if John 'upgraded' or
did a serarate install), that way Vista has no option but to go on a RAIDed
partition. I am planning to do the same (after I have found a save place for
my data and have shovelled all the junk away so I can access the hardware).

Just to repeat some of the facts one needs to be aware of:
I used old XP drivers during installation to get Vista RC1 to see my RAID
(SII 3114, Bios 4.84 which is NOT the latest), but Vista itself cannot be
installed on a RAIDed partition this way.
I 'loose' the array when I update the drivers (using Device Manager).

I think the location of the MBR, that is the disk which the MB BIOS 'boots'
might have an important role to play in this whole discussion and it just
might suffice to setup the BIOS to boot the array (and installing from CD and
possibly disabling the currently booting disk). Be warned though that this
would certainly break the bootability of your current OS installation. (you
should be able to restore it by restoring the original BIOS settings). To get
a nice dual-boot system whithout losing your current installation and at the
same time changing the location of the MBR requires some trickery but can be
done.

I will try the above myself and post the result later.

Success

PS What driver are you using for your sound (Live24 on the MSI K8N Neo4)? I
again use an XP driver which works but only reconizes 2 speakers.
 
All I did was use the XP Professional x64 nvraid drivers and it installed
without any problems. Two sata2 drives in RAID0, no other hard drives.
Dual-booting with XP.
 
Stephen,

Thanks. My motherboard (Award) BIOS version is V1.9 and my RAID BIOS is
4.84. I was using the SATA RAID drivers located here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp64_6.86.html

I extracted the SATARAID files (from the C:\NVIDIA directory) and put the
flat files on a floppy disk. I formatted the primary partition of the RAID
array (yes, again, with all other drives disconnected--not doing as much put
the boot stuff on the wrong drives despite my prioritizing the RAID as the
first boot hard drive in the BIOS) and installed XP completely. The only
thing I did not do with XP installer was I did not bother to run the full
nForce setup. I also did not add my GeForce drivers.

When I installed Vista (from within XP), I did NOT upgrade. Vista dims out
that option anyway; I don't know how everyone else has been doing that. I
did a full install, and Vista said it would move all directories to
Windows.old, which it did.

HTH,
Jon
 
Jon Davis said:
Stephen,

When I installed Vista (from within XP), I did NOT upgrade. Vista
dims out that option anyway; I don't know how everyone else has been
doing that. I did a full install, and Vista said it would move all
directories to Windows.old, which it did.
Click to expand...

One of the problems with that is the old permission owner tags are
left behind.

It's not a problem if all you had was XP installed where you simply
nuke the folder. But if you had any other files on the partition and
wanted to keep them, changing permissions is a bit of a hassle - not
huge, but still a hassle. I discovered that the first time I did it.

:-)

I'd like to see nVidia get their driver package in order so we can do
clean installs on a raw partition.
 
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