Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 RAID Fail

[jfedermair]

Hi,

I have the GA-970A-UD3 for a pretty long time now and was always really happy with it, until yesterday, when I wanted to setup a RAID array.

My main goal is: have five harddrives in an array, install an OS to the one drive not in the array (SSD), be able to boot the OS and let it use the array.

So i got to the BIOS setting, set the SATA controller to RAID, just to be sure I checked the harddrives in the BIOS setting (don't remember exactly where, but doesn't matter) and found them all working like they should.
This are the connected Harddrives:
5* WD Blue 500GB which I want to set in a RAID5 array
1* Intel SSD 200GB

All of them work like they should (in none RAID mode), so i can exclude a damaged harddrive.


When I now start the PC, the RAID initaliazation screen comes and this happens:

"Scanning drives..."".....Warning - Something wrong with your hardware..! "

After I got this Error Message, My only option is to reboot - not a single reaction to any key.

The funny thing is, if I deattach the SSD, the RAID controller starts as it should, but doesn't get to the point where it writes the error Messages and I can make arrays problemless. But as soon as i attach the SSD the above error comes. I can't even go to BIOS,BOOT MENU,Q-FLASH,.. i either can deattach the SSD, go to BIOS, set SATA Controller to AHCI and can use the PC, or I simply make a "harware BIOS reset" (pushing the Battery out for some minutes).

So the obvious problem here is the SSD, which I don't even want to have in an array here.

What I tried/have done:
BIOS Update (allready was at the newest version)
BIOS reset (not just one time)
formatted all the drives
Had the SSD at every SATA Port during reboot (SSD=SATA0->didn't work->reboot -> SSD=SATA1->didn't work->...)
Made uncountable tests with the SSD (with another System of course)
Updated firmware of SSD

What my thought of possible solutions is:
Get the damn RAID controller to just work with the SSD
Get the damn RAID controller to ignore the SSD, but let the PC boot from it (something like HDD=RAID;SSD=AHCI)
I'm everything other than a professional but is there something like a custom Firmware for BIOS?

There is a post here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/259472-30-problem-setting-raid-gigabyte-ma770 which is the same problem, but I believe it wasn't solved either.

So, has anyone had the same/a similiar problem like me? I'm open for every thoughts of you guys.

Thanks in advance for any help I get.

 

[ragnar-gd]

I just downloaded and read the manual. I was in a similar situation, building a windows 2011 home server with a raid5 system.
From my impression, you can have either (up to) 4 disks in raid5, and two other devices (like i.e.e OS on SSD and an optical drive), OR (5 or 6) drives in raid 5, and no other drives. Thus, your constellation is not covered, and probably technically not possible.
I solved the problem by NOT using the raid5 offered by the board, but instead having all drives stay as AHCI, and instead building the raid5 using the method offered by the OS (both windows and linux offer that).
As far as i know, the raid5 would not be slower.
You should read the manual again, and then decide, because my interpretation is just "remote".