Gigabyte ga-z77x-up5

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ripupthehwy

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SEE MY EDIT/Next Reply AT THE BOTTOM WHERE I RESOLVED THIS AND WAS ABLE TO DO BOTH RAID & NON RAID ON SAME SATA CHIP.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 and Intel 3770K i7 processor. This is the 3rd computer I've built for Video editing with a Gigabyte motherboard. MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH SATA ports. Drives I took out of my old computer do not read at all. The SATA6 ports (white connections) are supposed to be backwards compatible with Sata2 (3gbps) drives but they don't show up on my computer. SOMETIMES I see them in Windows Disk Managment as unallocated drives that require formatting to use. I tried changing the sata's from ACHI to IDE in the bios settings but that only made the computer fail to load windows (which I have loaded on the MSata card on board.) Any thoughts what I can try. My only recourse at this time is to re-format or install new sata drives that support Sata 3 (6gbps). This looks like FALSE ADVERTISING to me.
 
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jnkweaver

jnkweaver

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I am not certain about your board but mine said that if I used the mSata port then one of the SATA ports (5 or 6 don't remember) would be unuseable.
 
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ripupthehwy

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jnkweaver, yes, sata port 5 is unusable, and I'm staying away from it. But I can't get any type of dependablitlity with the other sata ports. I took sata drives out of my old computer (containing data) and they do not read in this board at all. I have to re-format a drive for it to be used. However the bottom port (8) is not keeping a drive at all. It randomly just disappears, ESPECIALLY IF I CONNECT ANYTHING TO A USB 3 PORT. Now, this bottom sata port (port 8) is said to be controlled my a Mavel chip (instead of the Intel chip) so maybe it's a crappy chip? The intel chips on sata ports 0,1,2,3,4,5. It looks like you have to make them either ide, ahci, or Raid type ports. ALL of them. Meaning its all or nothing. You can't make some ide and some raid? I'd like to put two drives in raid and two in regular ide but I'm thinking it won't let you.

VERY FRUSTRATED. How do I find out if it's defective board? Is there a phone tech support for Gigabyte? I'm going to try to contact them tomorrow.

 
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ripupthehwy

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EDIT: Okay I got everything up and running now. It turned out that one of my Seagate hard drives was bad, and failed the test seagate tools. All drives operating and showing up. Here's what I did for my raid: I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to mix raid and non raid setups on the sata ports all controlled by same chip (Intel). The bios has settings for IDE, ACHI, or RAID. And its for ALL the ports, not individually. But I think I got around that. I did the CTRL+I during post after setting the sata ports to raid in the bios. Then I built a raid 0 with two of the drives. When you reboot now any other drives on the other ports do not show up. I went back into the Bios and changed them back to ACHI and rebooted. Then in windows (8) I went into manage/storage/disk managment and initialized the raid. THEN I had to choose Simple Drive & Format. I thought this would take away the Raid but it didn't. (I thought all Raids had to be dynamic drives, not simple) But Now I have 3 non raid drives all functioning PLUS the two drives that comprise the Raid 0 stripe ! If I look at the properties of that raid volume is does indeed say Intel Raid. And the speed tests show twice the read/write speeds of the other drives. So I'm happy ! But was this the correct way to do this? My local computer store told me it couldn't be done. That the ports on the Intel chip have to all be Raid or all Non Raid. Worked for me.
 
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ripupthehwy

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w
Actually that was the problem. See my OS is loaded on the mSata card and it would NOT boot with bios set to raid so I had to change it back to achi after I created the raid in Ctrl+I . Then it booted up and I initialized the raid in disk management. I know it's weird
 
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ripupthehwy

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Thanks for the tip. What would I do without Top's Hardware? Gigabyte tech support is useless. No phone support that I know of and after a week they still haven't responded to my support question I filled out online.

QUESTION: Now that I've got everything working right, if I try your method above what will I gain? Is there a possibility it could cause my raid array to have to be re-striped? I would then lose the files I've already written to it. Why on earth don't they explain this better in the manual? THANKS !!!
 
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ripupthehwy

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Hey, i looked at that microsoft link but it's for windows 7 and I'm running new windows 8 so not sure it would work.
One caveate is if I don't change over to raid in bios (probably have to re-install OS and all software) I'm thinking I wouldn't be able to raid a couple THUNDERBOLT drives together with the new external ports on this board. Yeah I know that's too new for pc to discuss right now.

 
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ripupthehwy

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Hey this is what GIGABYTE tech support is telling me to do:

You can mix raid and non raid however the raid driver will still need to be
installed off the OS drive otherwise it cannot boot. Set it back to the original
mode first to boot and backup all data on all drives and start fresh.
From there insert just 2 drives to setup your raid array first and install the
OS onto it if you wish, if not still setup the array first. From there add
the drive you wish to install the OS onto and if it is the same controller
boot off the OS disc and install Windows onto that drive and you will still need
to load up the raid driver for the non raid driver as it is being used on the
same controller so it still requires drivers as the controller is engage as raid mode.
Once that is completed you can partition and format the other drives under Windows
so it can be access.


I'm not sure I follow him correctly. Where is this raid driver he's talking about? Is it a driver on the OS disc or is he talking about when I go into the bios and set the sata ports from ACHI to RAID?
 
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ripupthehwy

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These Gigabyte support guys have sent me on a friggin wild goose chase!
I did exactly what they said: I changed my sata Intel controller in the bios to RAID and installed two drives and set them up as raid 0. Then I installed Windows 8 on the MSATA card (also controlled by the Intel Raid). Forget the fact I had one hell of a time getting disk managment to see the Raid 0 drives.
I NEVER COULD GET WINDOWS TO BOOT FROM THE mSATA DRIVE. Yes they told me I had to install the raid drivers on the system drive for it to boot. I DID THAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER and went into the bios and made sure I told the computer to boot from the correct drive. It never did.
So screw this I'm re-setting the bios back to ACHI and installing windows again. Then changing the bios back to Raid and setting up the raid like I did previously. What a waste of an evening.
 
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ripupthehwy

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alexoiu,
Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to respond to my questions. I really appreciate it. You're right that probably the best solution is to try your registry method you mentioned. After all this frustration I apprehensive of screwing something up again.

After spending all night long trying to do it the way GIGABYTE instructed me, I'm now back to where I started, with the SATA ports set to ACHI in the bios. Everything seems to be working right this way. (Where I installed Windows 8 on the mSATA card set to ACHI, then I changed SATAs to RAID in the bios and built my raid 0 via CTL+I. Then switched back to ACHI and itiialized the raid array in disk management. I'm getting write speeds of 188mbps and reads up to 270mbps on the Raid array. It really REALLY seems to be working okay, although Intel Rapid Storage doesn't recognize it and only shows one of the drives, however inside Windows disk management is says I have a RAID 0.

WHAT AM I LOSING WITH IT SET UP THIS WAY??? IT'S WORKING! IS IT ONE DAY JUST GOING TO DIE OR SOMETHING??

I mean I can't see the point in changing it now. I have 3 other non raid drives in the computer also and I don't need raid for those, just for the one set to give me speeds for editing HD video footage.

I think the problem is having the Windows OS on the mSATA card instead of a regular drive. If I put the OS on the RAID 0 Array or perhaps another drive it might work.

Anyway thanks for all your help.
 
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ripupthehwy

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I should have done what you suggested in the first place. I tried the registry method and it WORKED ! Thanks so much.

alexoiu said:
I would firstly try the registry method. See if you can load Windows with SATA set to RAID.
 
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