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?

[idata]

How important is it actually to have the SSD in port 0?

If not necessary, I was thinking perhaps leaving the SSD where it is, just removing the Raid Disks and do a fresh install of W7. Then reconnect the Raid disks and remove W7 from the Vista bot record in System Configuration. I should then be able to choose OS by tipping F8 at start up to decide what disk to start from, rather to choose OS from bootloader screen. Is this a possible option? If so any problems with this?

How important is it actually to have the SSD in port 0?

If not necessary, I was thinking perhaps leaving the SSD where it is, just removing the Raid Disks and do a fresh install of W7. Then reconnect the Raid disks and remove W7 from the Vista boot record in System Configuration. I should then be able to choose OS by tipping F8 at start up to decide what disk to start from, rather to choose OS from bootloader screen. Is this a possible option? If so any problems with this?

[DZand]

Smal schrieb:

How important is it actually to have the SSD in port 0?

It may not be that important while working normally with the pc, but I think, that it would be a good idea nevertheless.

Reason: If you want to update the SSD firmware, the installer probably will not detect your SSD correctly, if it is connected with any higher numbered SATA port than port1. This is what a lot of Intel SSD owners reported.

Smal schrieb:

I should then be able to choose OS by tipping F8 at start up to decide what disk to start from, rather to choose OS from bootloader screen. Is this a possible option? If so any problems with this?

As long as you leave the configuration as it is, you will not run into problems, but I personally would always prefer to have not more than 1 active partition (with 1 single boot sector) within the system.

Regards

Fernando

[idata]

I have done all the recommended: Moved my SSD to SATA port 0 and my Raid drives to ports 1 and 2. Reinstalled W7 onto the SSD with the Raid drives disconnected. SSD first disk in BIOS boot order. I should now have the boot record on the SSD. Then reconnected everything. After re-installing the toolbox, it still says "RAID not supported. What do I do now?

[idata]

Nvidia chipsets allow indiviual ports to be programmed to be enabled or disabled for Raid use. If a port is disabled for Raid, then it will not appear in the Raid bios screen, and should use the standard Nvidia SATA controller driver (or, optionally, the Microsoft AHCI driver)--which could fix your problem. This is set up on a bios page called Integrated Peripherals. Start with OnChip IDE Device, then RAID Config, then change Serial-ATA 1 RAID (the port for your SSD) to "disabled".

Making this change to an installed OS might cause Windows not to start, since the disk controller driver is a kernel-mode driver required for boot, and may not like the disruption. If you get a blue screen for two successive restarts, it may be possible to finesse the problem by preinstalling the desired SATA driver. To do this, set the port with your SSD back to enabled for Raid (so that Windows will start), connect another SATA disk to a port that you disable for Raid, and let Windows install the SATA controller for that disk. Then disable the SSD port for Raid in the bios and, hopefully, the Windows will start and pick the correct SATA driver for the SSD. Then remove the extra disk. If this trick fails, the next step is to set the bios to disable Raid for the SSD, wipe the SSD, and reinstall Windows.

The bios config info above comes from an nForce 4 motherboard, and may be different for your setup.

[idata]

Thanks. From what I can see, the setup on my Dell XPS720 does not give me that many options. If I enter the Raid Bios I can see that my two raid disks are there nicely, but not my SSD. In the System Bios I only have 3 options for the disks On, Off and Raid. The SSD is On and the Raid disks are Raid. The SSD is said to have a SATA controller. My chipset is nVidia 680i, so it does not support AHCI. In Device Manager, the SSD recognizes itself as an "Intel SS DSA2M160G2GC SCSI Disk Device". Under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, I have "ATA Channel 0", "ATA Channel 1" and "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Under Storage Controllers, I have one "NVIDIA nForce Raid Controller" and three "NVIDIA nForce SATA Controllers". It all looks OK to me, and I am quite clueless.