NVIDIA Mediashield Setup Wizard... uh, what...?

[ac26xp]

I just purchased a Gateway LX6810, Intel Core 2quad Q8200, 8GB, Windows Vista 64bit SP1, NVIDIA GeForce GT120 graphics card.

During the initial "start-up" and automatic configuring of this new computer the following message pops up down in the Quick Launch task bar:

Before formatting your new disks...
Your system has 1 new disks available. Before formatting, NVIDIA MediaShield can help you configure then to best meet your storage needs.
To configure your disks, click this message.

So, when I click the message, I get the Welcome To The NVIDIA Media Shield Setup Wizard box.

This wizard will help you optimize the storage configuaration of your new disks.
You have the following disks available:
Hard Drive 1: 596.17GB

So, I click next and I get:

Select the type of RAID array to create.
RAID Mode: (drop down selection of either "striping" or "spanning")
Stripe Size: (drop down selection of 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, or 128k)

And this is where I stop, because I have no clue what I am doing or what I should do.

This MediaShield Setup Wizard pop-up continues to pop-up, so what do I do ?

Thanks for your patience and consideration with my post.

AC

 

[festerovic]

It appears you only have 1 hard drive, RAID should not be an option.... weird. It might just be setting up the spanning so that if you add another drive, it will let you span, which is the equivalent of just adding both of the HDDs together so they appear as one drive.

If you only have 1 drive, you can probably ignore this. Sorry thats not very helpful...

 

[ac26xp]

I have decided to ignore this "pop-up" by removing from my start-up list through msconfig.

It was a little annoying that it would keep asking me, even though I would think the system should inherently know if any additional hardware (including hard drives) had been installed.

Thanks !
AC

 

[hilleo1]

I have this same model Gateway LX6810-01 with same annoying message.

I used regedit to remove the startup entry for nvraidservice.exe from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Everything is fine now.

I left the RAID controller configuration prompt in the BIOS that is no problem and if I do get more drives I can then use it.

The offer to configure RAID from within windows on ONE disk makes no sense to me - you can't get a redundant array of disks from one disk anyway I know. Sounds like an easy opportunity for the end user to loose all their data!

 

[Mousemonkey]

It's because the Saturday boy part timer who built and set up your pre-build for you just installed everything from the nvidia chipset driver disc, one of the joy's of buying a prebuilt system, enjoy.

 

[kurtisheath]

I have the exact same problem with the exact same computer, Gateway LX6810-01. I even returned the first one I bought to Best Buy, where the Geek Squad hadn't a clue. The next one (the one I'm using now) has the same problem.

Aside from the MediaShield Setup Wizard pop-up problem, like AC said, there are more related problems: If I have a Belkin USB 4-port Hub plugged into the back of this tower, it will not load Windows. Instead it will say "Disk read error. press ctrl+alt+dlt to restart". When I unplug the hub and restart, it's fine. And once Windows is loaded, I can plug the hub back in and everything's smooth.

I think mousemonkey is right, even though I don't understand what 'Saturday boy part-timer' should have done.

I want to get rid of the whole thing and worry about it later, if I get a second drive, like hilleo1 said. I am wondering if anyone else has had similar problems related to the USB ports.

 

[rigelan]

The pop-up appears because you have the hard drive enabled as a raid drive in your BIOS. That is the way it works for mine. There is a place where I can enable or disable a drive to be used with raid. If raid is enabled, NVIDIA Mediashield takes control, if raid isn't enabled, Mediashield doesn't pay attention to it.

 

[jameskuhn8]

If I have a Belkin USB 4-port Hub plugged into the back of this tower, it will not load Windows. Instead it will say "Disk read error. press ctrl+alt+dlt to restart". When I unplug the hub and restart, it's fine. And once Windows is loaded, I can plug the hub back in and everything's smooth.

I think mousemonkey is right, even though I don't understand what 'Saturday boy part-timer' should have done.

I want to get rid of the whole thing and worry about it later, if I get a second drive, like hilleo1 said. I am wondering if anyone else has had similar problems related to the USB ports.

I had the same issues with the USB 4-port hub on the same Gateway machine... although I didn't even get the nice "disk read error" message. The machine just stalls when booting Windows and Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work. You have to do a hard shut-down and restart without the usb hub plugged in. Once Windows loads you can plug USB back in, and the computer recognizes all the devices and everything works fine. I was wondering if I was the only one...

Thank you all for the insight into the RAID setup too...

-russ

 

[wissbaum]

The pop-up appears because you have the hard drive enabled as a raid drive in your BIOS. That is the way it works for mine. There is a place where I can enable or disable a drive to be used with raid. If raid is enabled, NVIDIA Mediashield takes control, if raid isn't enabled, Mediashield doesn't pay attention to it.

I have this same issue except at some point I check some option I shouldn't have so now it doesn't see any bootable devices. It also appears that Gateway has locked the BIOS so you can't turn off the raid option (it's greyed out) you can only turn off the SATA controller which doesn't do me a bit of good. Is there any way to reflash the BIOS and if so could someone supply detailed instructions as it appears I am an idiot.
Thanks.

 

[1980s_kid]

An even more simple solution without altering your registry or BIOS settings is to disable the Media Shield program from your start-up options . I purchased an HP computer from Best Buy last September and have had the exact same error message problem for the past year, but I never took the time to get rid of the message until this morning.

This tip also works for any other software that start automatically with Windows that you can't otherwise disable from the program options. Just be careful that you don't disable necessary startup programs.

Select "Run" from your Start Menu, type in "msconfig", and click OK.
Your System Configuration menu will pop up.
Select the "Startup" tab and scroll through the menu until you find NVIDIA NVRAID within the "Startup Item" column.
Deselect the check box, click OK, and restart your computer.

The error message should not reappear.

 

[tssstein]

I have a Gateway LX6810.01 which I bought as a refurbished machine from Tiger with one SATA drive and RAID. It is a dual core quad system which has indicated it was running on 5 processors and actually working faster than any machine I have owned. This is a 64 bit VISTA with 8GIG RAM and one 640 GIG ROM. What in the name of holy electronics, can be done to keep this monstrousity on line?
After being replaced once, it is back to running two processors and distinctly slow. So much for SETI!
What I really want is a Dual Quad, 32-64 bit RAM, Multi-drive machine to do work.
What might I buyor build which runs Office and can get to the above capability?


Thomas S. Stein MBA
tssstein@yahoo.com
tssstein@gmail.com