Getting RAID to work on the ASUS Maximus SE

[Talonman]

I will be trying to get RAID 0 to work on the Maximus SE under Vista Ultimate.

This is a collection of post's made discussing getting RAID to work on the Maximus SE.

I thought it might be better to have all our RAID info in one thread.

okay, i got xp64 installed with raid 0 and used the whole 300gb to try and see what i got for speeds... well, it wasn't anything good. i don't think that it even split the two drives. when i went back in to try it without raid, one of the drives wasn't even partitioned. maybe my head is just too jumbled and i'm not thinking clearly right now, but this is getting annoying. what are you guys getting for speeds with your raptors in raid 0???

How would we test the speeds? I have 2x 36gb raptors set up now in RAID0. Tell me what to do and i'll test it now??

Edit: Just found a prog called DiskBench. To copy a Copy an avi file:

Size: 727961600
Time: 13797 ms
Transfer Rate: 50.318 MB/s
Hows that?

I have my raid setup with 2 74 gb raptors and all is well. But I have a 500gb seagate that I can see in the bios and it was shown in the Intel matrix storage manager, but I cannot see it in explorer. Also is anyone having any problems with utilities that came on the Asus CD and Vista 64. I loaded the utilities and started to experience look-ups when I went on the internet and had to delete them. I have updated my bios to 802. Thanks for the help.

For your Seagate drive, have you been to the following:

Right Click 'My Computer' and click 'Manage'
Under the Storage tree you should see 'Disk management'
You should see a list of drives. You may need to Enable the Seagate drive or Activate it.

Thanks thelawns. You were right. I initialized the drive and it can be seen now in explorer. Thanks again.

So you want to bench your array.

hdtach is better than hdtune.

I'm trying to install the matrix storage manager from windows on my X38 board and I get an error message saying my system doesn't meet the minimum requirements..

Upon further investigation, the current chipset identification utility doesn't work.

Any ideas??

Has anyone tried to use the chipset identification utility on X38??

I think I saw this message when I was on my P5K. What OS are you running? I was on Vista x64. Anyhow, I would make sure that your chipset drivers are up to date, and that you have the correct software. Try clicking on the setup.exe instead of ASUSsetup.exe. I can't remember what I did TBH....
BTW what's up from OCN

You might want to try enabling AHCI in the BIOS first. Be warned though, that in doing so, you may be required to re-install your operating system.

The Intel Matrix Storage drivers aren't designed for a controller acting in Standard IDE mode

You must enable RAID in SATA Configuratino. And yes you should have installed w/ f6 floppy from new install, but it can be fixed in existing OS, but needs some tricks. Yo will need "2" extra SATA HDD's asside from the OS SATA, a sepperate 3rd party SATA controller to boot from, or a 2nd PC to with the 2 sepperate SATA controllers, one using an Intel ICH8R/9R.

Let me know if you need further help as other mate above.

Hi guys

well for raid i really couldnt tell but heres my 2 cent contrib for anyone using just 1 disk and plans to switch to AHCP mode (which you should!) without reinstalling win, i did it myself:

- DL the intell drivers to make diskette, for your op.system, copy then to a temp folder or wherever u wish

files:

iaahci.cat
iaahci.inf
iastor.cat
iastor.inf
iastor.sys
txtsetup.oem

- do a first reboot to make sure the IDE part of the bios is in SATA mode compatible, to avoid probls

- go to the device manager, ide sata controllers, right click on the main sata controller and choose update driver, direction it to wherever u copied the files, choose the ICH9R (were talking maximus right, although cant really remember anymore the shown description)

- reboot, controllers will update and voi la....

here´s my hd_tach for the great seagate 7200.11 non raid, of course its NCQ 2nd generation and 32MB cache will be finally used

greets

Intel Matrix Storage drivers are designed for AHCI AND RAID specifications, not just RAID alone.
The only exception to this rule are a few ICH controllers that were missing RAID, but had AHCI support, however, you could still trick it into using the driver by adding the Device ID manually into the inf.

using hd tach i got 6.1 ms
You're trying to install the console. you need to switch it over to raid in bios, setup the raid config, load the drivers before you start windows, install windows, then install that console. read the manual and you should get an idea of what you need to do. there are newer drivers out at intel. use those.

I don't quite get it? what do i need to downloade to make a Raid0 on my 2 x Raptor 36.6Gb.
it would be nice if you could post a link ore two

Best Regards.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Prod...ProductID=2101

that will bring you to the page to get the correct drivers. from there, there should be two files. one, will be a console (i think the top file). the second will be the drivers that will help you make a floppy disk that you use during boot. when you install windows, you press F6 when it tells you. you then choose "s" and it looks in your floppy disk for the files. you should choose the ICH8R/ICH9R (desk/work/server) one. then it continues on with install.

if you nee step by step, shoot me a pm and i'll help you out. i don't know your level of knowledge. hope it helps!

# TheSamurai Thx a lot

But if is okay ill like to ask a nother question, how do i fit a Asus maximus BIOS file to a flobby-disk? do anyone have a link for a newbie like me? ore can tell me how to step by step

just put the file onto the floppy/thumb drive and when you start the bios flash utility (located in bios) it should show up.

It should, provided you have Legacy USB Enabled in the Bios... Is that right?

you should always have it enabled for OS installations.

You don't. Use a USB thumb drive.

I’ve been trying for two days now to install Vista Ultimate 64 Bit and RAID 0 with this board. I’ve tried the floppy install drivers off of Intel’s site and the drivers on the Asus CD, without any luck. I keep getting a message after loading the drivers that say’s
“This computer’s hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk’s controller is enabled in the computer’s BIOS menu.” Clicking the next button I get
“ Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.”

I have no problems installing RAID 0 on Windows XP 32 bit with this setup. Any ideas? my specs are below.

Asus Maximus Formula SE / BIOS 802
Core 2 X6800
Corsair XMS2 Dominator 4GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400/C-4)
Evga 8800 Ultra “Superclocked”
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0) -Windows Vista Ultimate/64 Bit
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (150GB) (RAID 0) -Windows XP Pro/SP2
PC Power and Cooling 1000Watt SR
SilverStone TJ-09 (Black)

I can't speak for this mobo, but Vista Ult x64 had the required drivers alread for ICH7R> So I should think since ICH8R was our already by Jan this year, they should be there as well. If making the floppy from ASUS, make sure it's the x64 version.

Do a test, with just 1 or 2 of the Raptors on SATA 1 & 2, boot to Vista x64 DVD (or CD) w/o hiting f6 to see if it sees the drives and loads Vista set up, in AHCI/RAID ready mode, no array yet.

Remember, if it is allready loaded on one HDD in RAID/AHCI mode, you should be able to easily migrate to RAID "0" via the Matrix Mannager in Vista. It works this way for XP x64

I’m not sure what you mean when you say “RAID/AHCI mode”. In the BIOS I can only choice RAID or AHCI, not both.

What I can’t figure out is that when I load Windows XP/32 Bit, I have no problems at all with the RAID drivers so it can’t be a BIOS setting.

Try to change Harddrive priority so your raid array is in priority one.
I had trouble with my USB mem ending up Prio 1 so it tried to install on that one.

I gave that a try but it does not help.

Enable RAID, w/ boot rom enabled and 32sec delay, write protection off for now (on later if you need).

AHCI (Advance Host Controller Interface) uses all the performances of the RAID controller but as single or multiple disc in non RAID fashion. (NCQ, speed boost etc.)

Since RAID is AHCI plus more, it is perfectly fine to just always use (Enable) RAID weather running an array or not. This is known as an Intel RAID ready install mode. Where later in Windows, one can continue the RAID install
by migrating it form a single disc to the 2nd and so on as desired.

I'm just used of doing it this way since new on ICH5R, but I'm sure many here do it from initial fresh install and can help get it going this way too.

Just remember that if doing fresh install and using RAID ready, to use f6 floppy during install, after 1st loading to desktop, run chipset INF, followed directly by Matrix Storage Manager Utility if migrating to RAID array in Windows, followed by set up as usual from there. I'd make sure system is fully set up in terms of drivers, updates and such before migration (no yellow makrs in Device Mannager).

Good luck!

In the “SATA Configuration” I have “Configure SATA as” “RAID”. “Hard Disk Write Protect” is set to disable and “SATA Detect Time Out” is 35. That’s it for the RAID options in BIOS.

I have my drives also configured in RAID 0 (Ctrl-I function) in the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Option ROM Utility.

The “Onboard Serial-ATA BOOTROM” that is mentioned in the motherboard manual is not even present anywhere in my BIOS.

Darkstormz, did you go into intel matrix manager (ctrl l) during post to identify the 2 drives making your raid array? Double check your settings in the bios to be on "raid". I updated my bios and the settings do change from raid to ide. Hope this helps.

My problem is solved by myself yesterday. I just tried to explain to user djt how I solved it

This just gets better and better.

I changed the “Suspend Mode” option in BIOS from “Auto” to “S3 Only” and what do you know it loads the RAID drivers in Vista 64 and I’m able to load Windows no problems.

To make sure that was definitely the problem I tried it again, and it now it won’t load the RAID drivers again.

This has got to be one of the flakiest boards I’ve come across in a long time.

I think this POS is getting yanked and my Evga 680i SLI is going back in.

@ Djt "The “Onboard Serial-ATA BOOTROM” that is mentioned in the motherboard manual is not even present anywhere in my BIOS." If you do not have the iostar driver (Intel SATA RAID Controller 82801IR), BIOS & ROM won't see anything connected to it yet.

I ran into this issue when I tried to install Vista onto two "right out of the box" SATA drives that had not yet been initialized or partitioned. I had to "initialize" the drives before installing Vista. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925481/en-us

You can also read up about another (different) type of problem and solution at:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-025783.htm

Nurn,

I think you’re on to something.

How exactly did you initialize the drives?

I’m trying to load Vista 64 on only two of my four drives (RAID 0 on the two 74 GB Raptors) for an eventual Vista 64/XP dual boot setup.

I had this very same setup when I had the Evga 680i SLI motherboard installed and it ran fine and did not give me any problems loading Vista 64.

By the way, thanks for the link to the Microsoft info. I’m pretty certain that this is the problem; the symptoms that are mentioned in the link are exactly what I’m experiencing.

I also noticed that with the Maximus Formula setup I have all four drives showing up when I go to install the RAID drivers in Windows setup. With the Evga 680i board only the two drives that were configured in the Nvidia RAID utility are present during Windows Vista setup. I’m wondering if the two drives in RAID and the other two spare drives are causing the confusion with the X38 chipset. It almost sounds like the two spares will have to be disconnected during Windows Vista setup.

you guys should just get an add raid controller. it's faster and you can take it with you to your next motherboard. There are cards that can fit in the 1x pci-e slots you don't use.

I have the following question:

I´ve got the board "ASUS Maximus" and two of the 160 GB SAT2 WD1600YS fixed disks. I want to create a RAID0. When I set the RAID in BIOS and reboot the computer, it freezes at the begining of the start monitor. Only when I pull the SATA cables it will reboot. Where is the mistake? Who can help me? I spoke with the ASUS support and they told me that my power supply unit with 500 Watt is not enough. I should buy me a 800 Watt power supply unit. Is this possible?

lol, i highly doubt that it's your PSU. use the clear cmos button and start again.

were you able to boot with it on stock settings?

[TheSamurai]

i'll add some in here... HD tach 6.1, HD Tune 5.5, with 25 GB slice on dual raptors and xp64 (i think that's the number people look for, i'm a noob with harddrive performance). personally, i don't think it's really worth it for me. i'm thinking of going back to just the single drives. with it that way, atleast i won't have any problems if i want to switch motherboards or something. the thought of having to rebuild makes me sick... haha.

i'm thinking that i'll put xp64 on 1 raptor, and linux on the other one. maybe i'll buy another when i get vista 64. blah.

[Talonman]

Thanks buddy!! Your input is always welcome.

[TheSamurai]

what are your thoughts on the raid vs. single drives? i'm hesitant to just scrap this OS install, but atleast there isn't anything important on it.

[Talonman]

I am kind of missing what we are saying on that.

I will be doing a fresh OS install on blank drives, so as long as I can do BIOS updates withought loosing my RAID config, and having to re-install the OS I think I'm fine with it?

I feel like I am missing something.

Just so things might go smother for me, I baught a program called Wipedrive that was recomended in the ABIT IP35 Pro thread. I made the bootable CD, booted using my Pavilion, and wrote 0's on all 4 of my drives that I will be using on the new system. Then I formated all 4 of the drives again with my Pavilion running Vista 32 Home Premium. This may help the RAID install go better?

When I do the OS install, I should probably just leave the 2 Raptors SATA cables in, until Vista is totally installed correctly.

[TheSamurai]

the thing is, if something happens (like the drive starting to go bad, losing the MB, etc.) you'll most likely have to re-install everything on the raid again. the reason i think i'm going back to the old way is for security and peace of mind. i'd be able to take my drive out and go over to a friends and boot right up with it (minus driver issues like gfx card, etc.). there is no way you could do that with a raid. when one goes, you lose everything without a possiblity of getting back into it.

the performance gain just doesn't seem worth it to me. maybe if i was running a large server or doing video rendering (way beyond the levels of gaming) i'd notice a difference. i've tried a clean install on just one drive and it was rather fast... not too noticible a difference from the raid. the more and more i research, it seems pointless to have one... more of bragging rights it seems or for benchmarking (which i guess would be for bragging rights too lol). this, of course, is just my $.02

[Talonman]

I think im going to just back up my 2 RAID drives on one of my normal storage drives. Probably will fit on my Samsung 250GB. Might take some of the sting out of a total recovery?

I just hope the initial install goes well, and I get everything set up correctly.

I think I still am going to try it. I actually baught the 2 Raptors just to play around with RAID.

[WFO]

Acronis TI 10 can back up and restore Raid 0 in Vista 64. Unfortunately you have to reinsert the install disk to repair the boot sector. Other than that it works fine. They botched TI Home 11. It sees the raid 0 drive on backup but not in restore. I'm waiting for the next version update hoping they correct that.

Despite using the latest Intel drivers on 4 attempts to install XP x64 on my Maximus, I only got to the select which disk to install on screen once. I had to cancel that because it wanted to make my storage drive C. I gave up and installed Vista 64 in Raid 0 on 2 Seagate 320GB drives with no issues. I used the Vista drivers and upgraded the drive after the install.

[Talonman]

Thanks for the tip. I will give Acronis TI 10 a hard look!

[devilhood]

You forgot to include the post about which order the drivers should be installed in, because most people tend to make this mistake.

During Vista's initial install, you need to make sure you use 'Load Driver' for the Floppy/USB install of Intel® Matrix Storage Manager 7.8.0.1013.
Once the OS is up and running, you should then install the Intel® INF 8.4.0.1016.
Restart and let everything load normally, then install the full package of Intel® Matrix Storage Manager 7.8.0.1013 (iata78_enu.exe).
Restart again and everything should be fine.
This eliminated the iaStor problems I was experiencing. I even tried a second re-install just to be sure, and everything was fine.

[Talonman]

Thanks for the info... and for helping to keep us out of trouble...

[Exahertz]

I have an issue with the support dvd, i need to make a floppy with the 3rd party raid drivers. so i set my bios to boot from the dvd drive and it wont boot from the asus support dvd and it works fine with other bootable dvds??? the even weirder thing is, on a hunch i tried to boot the support dvd on my laptop and still nothing....

[Exahertz]

Am i missing something? because ive been at this all night and its really starting to get to me!!!

I went into bios and enabled RAID under sata configuration:



Hit (Ctrl + I) after post and entered the Intel Matreix Manager and set my Raptors as a RAID set:



Booted from the Win XP setup CD and hit (F6) for 3rd party RAID/SCSI drivers. and selected the ICH9R driver.



it loaded the driver off of my flopy with no errors. so i get to this setup screen and hit enter:



and this is the error i get :



what am i doing wrong??????????

[Exahertz]

ahhh, so i read my own post and i think i answered my own question. LOL, i need to select ICH9R SATA RAID Controller and not the ICH9R SATA AHCI Controller. LOL, Well im glad i took pictures! and i feel really stupid now.

Ill try again and hope it works!

[Exahertz]

yep that was it!!!

Check it out!

[Nanometer]

wow dude.,.. haha jk. I've done the same. It gets annoying going through the setup so many times.

[wreckage]

Hi, i have an Maximus ofc, and 2x Raptor 36GB SATA and trying to install Vista 64bit, i have enabled RAID in bios, and made both the disks to a RAID thingy, both are working Member Disks, it sais "RAID: INTEL RAPTOR" in bios, since i named it Raptor, but Vista dosnt find any hard drive to install windows on, do i need to download any files to my USB and try to load them so windows can find my raid?

Please Help //wreckage

Edit: What did you guys do for it to work with Vista? I see in alot of signatures that you have Raid 0 with Vista 64bit for example, but why am i having problems? My raid worked fine on ASUS P5W DH Deluxe X975

[iadstudio]

So here's my situation, I think a number of solutions to a number of situations can be found in this exchange. I'll update this post as to how it works when I get home this evening. It al started because I was having trouble setting up a storage RAID 0 and a single boot disk with the OS on it.

The intel RAID/AHCI needs to be enable to be seen by BIOS and Windows. However, the iostar driver is not there so it can't load, and yet you can't add it to the OS if you can't get it to boot. This is why stil to this day, us S2K3 and XP users need the f6 install, because it needs to be enabled and directed to the floppy during initial install.

Now it can be added but you need to have/or borrow "2" other SATA HDD's (nothing will be written to them). And a 3rd party legasy SATA controller.

Connnect the 2 extra HDD's to the Intel ICH9R port 1&2 with RAID Enabled and delay to 35sec. Connect your existing OS to the SATA drop in card (MAXIMUS has no J-Micron SATA like P5E). If this card needs drivers, make sure they were installed when OS was on Intel IDE as before so they are ready. You will need to have the "2" HDD's cause Intel ICH9 is not active if NO or only 1 HDD is connected, so Windows will not see it and of corse you wont be ably to run Matrix app. This is why we trick the BIOS and the Intel RAID booot ROM to think it has a set of RAID disc ready to set up.

You will now be able to boot into Windows and run Intel RAID app to install the iostar driver and the rest of the Matrix Storage Manager as would have bean done in the first place.

You can now boot to XP and go to Device manager to confirm you see Intel SATA RAID Controller in SCSI and RAID Controllers. Now you can shut down, rearrange your HDD's as before or with the RAID Ready 2nd HDD to port 2 of ICH9R next to your existing OS you're done w/ SATA drop in card and other HDD's if borrowed).

Congrats, you ae now Intel RAID Ready and can follow the set up in Matrix app to migrate RAID in a Windows inviorment. It will even run in background if you still wanna' work.

Good Luck!

The intel RAID/AHCI needs to be enable to be seen by BIOS and Windows. However, the iostar driver is not there so it can't load, and yet you can't add it to the OS if you can't get it to boot. This is why stil to this day, us S2K3 and XP users need the f6 install, because it needs to be enabled and directed to the floppy during initial install.

Now it can be added but you need to have/or borrow "2" other SATA HDD's (nothing will be written to them). And a 3rd party legasy SATA controller.

Connnect the 2 extra HDD's to the Intel ICH9R port 1&2 with RAID Enabled and delay to 35sec. Connect your existing OS to the SATA drop in card (MAXIMUS has no J-Micron SATA like P5E). If this card needs drivers, make sure they were installed when OS was on Intel IDE as before so they are ready. You will need to have the "2" HDD's cause Intel ICH9 is not active if NO or only 1 HDD is connected, so Windows will not see it and of corse you wont be ably to run Matrix app. This is why we trick the BIOS and the Intel RAID booot ROM to think it has a set of RAID disc ready to set up.

You will now be able to boot into Windows and run Intel RAID app to install the iostar driver and the rest of the Matrix Storage Manager as would have bean done in the first place.

You can now boot to XP and go to Device manager to confirm you see Intel SATA RAID Controller in SCSI and RAID Controllers. Now you can shut down, rearrange your HDD's as before or with the RAID Ready 2nd HDD to port 2 of ICH9R next to your existing OS you're done w/ SATA drop in card and other HDD's if borrowed).

Congrats, you ae now Intel RAID Ready and can follow the set up in Matrix app to migrate RAID in a Windows inviorment. It will even run in background if you still wanna' work.

Good Luck!

So, if I have the Vista 64 upgrade from xp and I have to install xp first, this should work fine, right? (please say yes)

I knew about this and thought Vista had RAID drivers imbedded. I tought I'd try to install normally in xp, not having to deal with the f6 "add 3rd parts driver" thing in xp and once I got to vista I tried to create my array. Only thing is the matrix storage utility software that I remember from xp wasn't available for vista. I found a knowledge base somewhere that said if you edit the msahci registry to 0 before you switch from IDE to RAID in the bios, you should be fine, but I didn't know that until after I had a problem.

Long story short, from what I understand of your post, I should be able to install my RAID driver in xp, install OS on a single drive and create a storage array and then upgrade to Vista and be fine. Right?

SOLUTION:

I didn't try this as I installed Vista from an OEM DVD. This article http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...rade_clean.asp
shows how to do a clean install with an upgrade key. I didn't load any F6 drivers at all for Vista, so if this works it should save you a bunch of pain.

Thanks! I already installed but it'll help for future installs.

Edit: If you buy a Vista upgrade edition this method does not work Vista Upgrade keys will not work on a clean install.

[ohsnapsjay08]

great info here... still alittle confuse but i hope it gets to my senses.

[sullysnet]

great info, thank you. Is there a way to convert over from AHCI to RAID. When I try to replace my AHCI driver the list of drivers from iastor.inf and iaahci.inf show only AHCI and nothing for RAID. I've even tried to point it right at those files and uncheck the show only compatible drivers.. still nothign for RAID shows.

thanks

[TheMash]

hello guys,
im a new user of Maximus Formula motherboard, and i'm from Italy
I really like this forum.
So i decided to try to get help here.
Searching on google about my problem didnt help.
So, here's my problem:
i've two maxtor sata (old sata, not SATAII) 120gb hard drives, that i configured in bios in RAID mode, i created raid with ctrl-i option in "0" mode (striping).
But everytime I start the system, after ram test, it freeze for 20-30sec on DET IDE status (this is what i read on lcd poster).
When it freeze my hdd activity led its turned on for about 10sec, then turn off and finally it comes turned on for further 10 sec...
After that my system goes out from "freezing" status and boot normally.
I had this problem with 902 and 903 bios.
What's wrong?
Thanks in advance

[TheMash]

nobody wants to help me?
its very frustrating this problem...

[TheSamurai]

try clearing the cmos, don't forget to set it back to raid boot.

[Jodiuh]

This thread needs pics!!



That's a pair of Raptor 74GB 8MB's w/ 70GB slices. Last week, I had a mini LAN and the array loaded COD4 MP maps 2x faster than my buddies single.

I also ran into the issue of Vista x86 not liking my drives on install, but creating a new part and rebooting took care of that. It installed just fine wo/ drivers and I threw on the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver/software after the chipset. I've cut the power from Vista a couple times and have lost no data...not even a rebuild on the mirror, hehe.

For onboard RAID, it's def a step up over the 590/570 on Nv's boards.

[DEVIL_DK]

raid work fine on this board no need for loading drivers under install.

vista have a bug that do ypu cant install it if you have more than 1 hdd in your system that not have a partittion.

here is my 2 wd raptor 74gb drives in raid 0

Jodiuh
are your drives on speed or somting damn yours i fast.