Hi, great forum, glad to discover a place for RAID enthusiasts!
I was wondering if anyone’s run across this issue, for some reason my Intel 335 Raid 0 disk has been acting mysteriously. It refuses to format in gpt mode, but formats just fine in mbr.
First discovered the issue while trying to upgrade to windows 8.1 using UEFI mode. Window 8.1 installs just fine in non Raid mode. Also installing the latest intel RST software (in Legacy Raid 0 mode) would cause the disks to be constantly reading and freezing up the system. Any ideas?
I’ve updated to the latest SSD firmware, my mobo (Asus ROG Impact) is also updated with the latest bios. Much thanks!
@ ACR:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Please give us some additional informations:
1. Which system/mainboard (name and chipset) are you using?
2. Did you break the previous RAID0 array, do a secure erase of both Intel SSDs and rebuild the RAID0 array in UEFI mode, before you installed Windows 8.1 in UEFI mode?
3. Which BIOS settings did you choose within the BOOT section?
Regards
Fernando
Hi Fernando,
Here are my system specs:
1. System and mainboard Z87 Haswell, Asus Maximus IV Impact, 4770K.
2. Yes, I specifically bought Parted Magic following the secure erase information I have read on this forum.
3. For UEFI, I used the Intel EFI SataDriver v12.7.0.1936 to create the raid volume (64K stripe) and RAID in SATA config. The SSDs were detected fine within Windows 8.1 (clean install), however when starting the install in the unallocated disk, the install would take an unbearably long time to finish, possibly hanging with no change in screen activity. A stark contrast to how quickly it installs in non-Raid mode or legacy Raid 0 mode (in Windows 8, I can’t get legacy raid 0 mode to finish installing in Windows 8.1).
The problem has persisted for days and I have been trying to best to diagnose the problem. I’ve done everything from upgrading to clean installing and have determined that the problem somehow lies with the SSD array in Raid 0 config in gpt partition. Using diskpart to clean and create a partition in gpt is no problem, but as soon as I try to format the partition to ntfs, it will just hang and stay at 0%, pretty much what I am assuming happens during the install process as well as Windows 8/8.1 is formatting and creating partitions.
Interestingly, for the first time I’ve installed the system 1 year ago (on another motherboard, Maximus V Gene), I installed Windows 7 on Raid 0 and proceeded to install the Intel RST software to enable write back caching and it worked without a hitch. The next time I decided to reinstall Windows and IRST, the disks would exhibit a similar kind of hanging and freezing; slow boot, unresponsive system, needed to restore before the point of the installation of the IRST software; kind of similar to the phenomenon that is happening now with the formatting of the gpt partition.
I think there is something wrong with my Intel 355s in Raid 0 and suspect that the only fix is to replace these with another set of SSDs. I hoping someone could point me to a solution or reason for this. Thank you in advance.
Why did you install the OS onto the unallocated disk?
It would have been far better to let Win8.1 Setup create a new volume for the OS (leaving some space for a second volume or for "Over-Provisioning"), before starting the installation.
Hi Fernando, I did not see the Win 8.1 set up when I was clean installing, but I shall look for it the next time.
Btw, any idea why the Intel RST software is causing my Raid 0 to malfunction? Where do I start looking for a fix?
Thanks so much for your help, much appreciated!
It is the moment, when you have to decide where the OS shall be installed.
I don’t know which malfunction you mean, but my advice is to unplug all unneeded drives until the OS installation is completed and the Device Manager is "clean" (without yellow marks).
@ ACR :
If you have SSD, then you don’t have drives over 2TB. You don’t format any drive unless you want to change from NTFS to a different format. MBR and GPT are windows formats.
A clean install is the best way. You secure erase both SSD, hit CTRL + I, bring up Intel option rom and make the RAID 0 array, 128k stripe is best. Now you either use a USB flash drive with windows on it, then bring up boot menu, you will see the array and pick the flash drive that say’s UEFI. You must boot from the flash drive in UEFI.
Or just install. If you pick UEFI then windows will make a GPT and when installing you see three partitions, or if you just install, you will see one and it will install MBR.
Without explaining to much, if you want GPT, you install from boot in UEFI, you do not need to add any drivers when installing, you can add the RST driver after windows installs .
Before you do anything, you should clear CMOS, set all BIOS settings, set to RAID, then create array, then reboot and pick boot menu.
Here is a pic of the boot menu, look at # 4. You can see the drives, you can see AHCI- best buy and UEFI best buy. The best buy is a flash drive. If you boot from the flash drive in UEFI, then you will get GPT, when you go to install.
Number 8, is what you see if you booted from the flash drive in UEFI, these are the three partitions, you want to install windows on the largest primary partition, like in the pic.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/186875-uefi-unified-extensible-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html