X25-M G2 - Raid Problem

[idata]

Installed W7 64 bit on this new disk a week ago. It has firmware 02HA. I have a dual boot system with Vista x86 on Raid 0 and W7 64 bit on this SSD. When trying to run the toolbox it says "Raid Not Supported".

I have nVidia Chipset 680i. In the Device Manager, under IDE/ATAPI Controllers, I have a Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller and under Storage Controllers, I have 1 nVidia nForce RAID Controller och 3 nVidia nForce Serial ATA Controllers. Under Disk Drives the SSD reports itself as a "INTEL SS DSA2M160G2GC SCSI Disk Device".

What shall I do, send the SSD back?

[DZand]

There is no reason to RMA the SSD.

I suspect, that the active partition with the bootloader is still within the RAID0 array.

The configuration should be the following:

1. The SSD should be connected with the first of the available SATA ports (port0 or port1).
2. Before you are going to install Windows 7, you should unplug all other hdd's.
3. Once Win7 is up, you can reconnect the RAID'ed hdd's to the next SATA ports.
4. After having done that, you probably have to repair the Vista bootloader.
5. It is possible, that Windows 7 will not see your RAID partitions and data at once. You can repair this by opening the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section of the Win7 Device Manager and replacing the listed "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controllers", where the RAID'ed hdd's are connected, by the "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controllers". Just do a right click onto them, use the "Update driver software" option and let the Device Manager show the compatible devices. Then choose the NVIDIA one.

[idata]

OK, thanks. I have some additional couple of questions to get this right. I disconnect my Raid disks (currently on 0 and 1) and install the SSD in port 0, move my DVD players from 2 and 3 to 4 and 5, right? Do you know if I have to go into the Raid setup to disable Raid first? Do I have to do that at all? Then I go into the BIOS and set SATA 0 to ON (currently RAID) and SATA 3 to RAID. Then I reboot. Do I have to make a clean install or can I do a start-up repair to fix the W7 bootloader? When w7 is up and running, I check if toolbox works. If it does, I shut down, reconnect Raid disks in port 1 and 2, set BIOS to RAID for them, reboot and check that the RAID setup looks fine. Then I have to fix the Vista bootloader, how do I do that?

[DZand]

@ Smal:

1. If you can choose the individual mode of your SATA ports, you should do it as you have written.

2. Don't do anything within the RAID ROM Utility. The RAID will be detected by the BIOS even after having changed the ports.

3. I would do a clean reinstall of Windows 7 x64 after having changed the ports and unplugged the RAID'ed hdd's. Only this way you will get the separate boot partition with a size of 100MB (or more to put the pagefile of Windows 7 onto it), which is good for a dual boot configuration.

4. You can fix the Vista bootloader either by booting off the Vista DVD and using the repair option or by running a tool like EasyBCD,

5. You always have to make sure, that the SSD is in the first position of the "HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY" BIOS settings.

Good luck!

Fernando

[idata]

Thanks, very helpful. It is probably safest to use EasyBCD as I have just an OEM original Vista disk and not SP2.