Windows 7 64 bit won't install on raid 0

[capnmorgan]

Hello all, My name is John. I have been lurking around for some time now for answers but my new problem requires me to pick your brains.

I am trying to install windows 7 64 bit on my system but when it comes time to install raid drivers I get the unsigned driver warning and windows doesn't load the driver or see my array. If I install the 32 bit driver, installation continues like normal but after the first reboot it never boots again.
I'm trying a clean install with no other drives attached to the system. I have the drivers on a USB stick. I have verified the driver signature on the latest drivers supplied by gigabyte and it is in the same folder as the driver. What the heck am I missing?

Windows 7 32bit installation works fine on this system/array. I have also installed Vista 64 on another system with ecs board and 2 seagates in raid 0 without problem, so I have a good Idea of what I'm doing.

I have a gigabyte ga-ma790x-ud4p board and 4x hitachi 250gb drives. I downloaded the latest drivers from gigabyte. If I install windows 7 64bit to a raptor 74gb drive, then load the drivers, windows loads the array fine as "Drive D" and it's useable but I want the OS loaded on the array.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[das_stig]

When W7 is looking for hdd's did you use the advanced option and tell it you had a driver on fdd/usb.

Looking on GB support page, there are 4 raid drivers depending on what controller chip your using and how you access the drives.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ProductID=3038&ost=windows+7+64bit#anchor_os

 

[jitpublisher]

I did not know you could install the OS on a drive, or array labeled "Drive D".
I thought that an OS would only install to "Drive C".
I could be wrong, but why is your array showing up as drive d anyway, it should be showing up as drive c, do you have another drive attached to the system with an OS on it already? If so, this is the problem.

 

[Ijack]

You can install Windows on any drive, although the boot loader has to be on the first drive. I used to have an installation with Windows 2000 on C and XP64 on D - it worked just fine.

 

[jitpublisher]

You can install Windows on any drive, although the boot loader has to be on the first drive. I used to have an installation with Windows 2000 on C and XP64 on D - it worked just fine.

Yeah, I guess you are right now that I think about it, and back years ago when I used to run multiple OS's, it has been a while, and I am old and forgetful!
But still, there is more to this than the OP is stating, because the array he is using should not be showing up as drive d, and with that in mind, there lies the problem somewhere, I would darn near bet on it.

 

[capnmorgan]

yeah I get to where w7 ask for drivers/advanced options, I have downloaded all 4 from gigabyte and they all give the same problem, w7 reports that the use of unsigned 64 bit drivers is not supported and may cause adverse operation, and doesn't load them.

I have even loaded vista 64 to C drive, loaded the raid drivers, then ran setup of w7 to D drive(my array) and after first reboot I get a message saying windows can't configure selected partition, installation aborted.

I'm going to try to install vista 64 to the array and then upgrade to w7 next. I let you know how it goes.lol

jitpublisher
The array only shows up as Drive D when I install w7 64bit to a 74gb raptor then load the drivers (the same driver that doesn't work durring install) and the system finds the array.

If I install w7 32bit to the array it is Drive C. I am only having this problem with w7 64bit, not w7 32bit or vista 64/32.

 

[capnmorgan]

I got it working. I had to use the latest vista 32-bit drivers, at boot I got some error messages, I updated the drivers once in w7 and the errors are gone.
after all is done I only gained .1 experiance point for HD performance and it takes 16 seconds longer to boot, was it worth it. lol. I should have just bought a 1 tb drive.

Thanks all

 

[Zoron]

Don't rely on Gigabyte's drivers... they could quite possibly be out of date. You're better off downloading drivers directly from the chipset manufacturer (Intel, nVidia, etc); you can be guaranteed that the drivers will be the latest and have the required signature.

 

[das_stig]

Should create a raid-10 ( stripe+mirror ) out of the hdd's to create a mirror 500gb array.

You get performance + security. Just don't put a swapfile on it.

 

[jitpublisher]

I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah, a 1TB drive is what I would have done!
RAID 0 is way overrated these days. 5 or 6 years ago, RAID 0 was a big improvement.
Drives were crawling slow, and if you could afford 512 meg of memory, you were lucky as hell!
But the drives today are fast enough, and you can load your PC up with gigs of memory for practically nothing so once things are loaded, the drive is actually only hit occasionally, instead of constantly like years ago.
RAID 0, most people really, really don't need it.

 

[capnmorgan]

Yeah, I got the drives from my buddy for a little less than the cost of a 1tb drive and figured what the heck, I'll just setup raid 0 and it'll be faster. He probably sold em to me cause he had the same problem lmao.

I updated my bios and it fixed my boot time, it's back to 30ish seconds like my raptor was but the benchmark software shows a big improvement. I'll never actualy know if it's faster because all my programs and games worked just fine before, I got to tinker a little though, that was fun. The new drives are quieter and cooler than the raptor was too.

I do alot of transcoding and it may help out there a little on larger files but I doubt it, I think that uses more cpu resources than anything.

I don't need redundancy, I have a home server that I back up to. I'm happier though, just one drive letter to work with now, instead of a 74gb and a 500gb, somtimes I would forget to change drive letters durring an install. lol.

oh yeah, AMD only has the vista 64 drivers listed. I asked them when the w7 drivers will be out but they prob won't answer me until monday.