slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 So I just purchased a second Nova 128g SSD and am attempting to install windows7x64 on the array. So far I have not had any luck and am regretting the decision and thinking of returning the 2nd one. Here is the sequence of actions I took: Changed my SATA ports 1-6 to RAID via Bios. Used the raid tool on my motherboard to create a RAID 0 array(first I used full capacity and the second time I left 30g unallocated in hopes this would fix the problem). Stripe size tried: both 64kb and 128kb. Full Erased both drives with Raid tool and attempted to install again. Made RAID Driver disk(usb drive) with the latest drivers for my motherboard. When I first load win7 setup the drives are not listed at all. When I load the drivers for them from my usb drive I can then see the array, however, when I press "Next" to install I get the error "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log etc...etc...". Currently the 2 nova's are the only drives I have connected(they are connected to ports 5 & 6). Pretty much done everything I can think of to get these dang things to work. Any help would be much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yellowbeard Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Try secure erasing them using Parted Magic then, adding them to your RAID array. Also, don't partition or format them. Let WIN7 do that. Be sure to add your RAID controller driver at the prompt in the WIN7 install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Still not having any luck. Changed them from ports 5 & 6 to 1& 2 because I read on another forum that that worked for someone else. Not for me. Quick question about secure erasing...I have Parted Magic loaded on USB as bootable drive. I boot in and select Secure Erase. It then asks me for a password to use or to leave the field "Null". When I leave the field as "NULL" it continues and I see the small window popup saying that erasing is in progress or whatever but it dissapears within 10 seconds. It says it will dissapear when it is finished but I have a hard time believing it is finishing in 10 secs even with a SSD. Am I doing something wrong? BTW: When I first tried it the windows installation asked me for the drivers instead of me choosing to load them, which was new, but after loading the RAID driver it still said that no devices could be found. Still stumped >< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yellowbeard Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Secure erase only takes a few seconds. Take a look at the disk attached to a controller as a slave drive. If you see no partition info, it's fully erased. Will the same controller see the drives in AHCI or IDE mode? Which controller are you using to set up the RAID array? Is there a secondary SATA controller on that MOBO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Ok good to know about the secure erase. I did a full erase(first option) followed by a secure erase but still no luck. I am using the SB850 South Bridge controller to setup the raid array. I previously had a single Nova128g set up as both IDE and AHCI and had no problems detecting them once I loaded the drivers(none was needed for IDE only when I wanted to install win7 with AHCI mode on did I need the driver). Yes, there is 2 more controllers on this board for ports 7 & 8 - JMicron 363 Controllers for the 2 sata 3gb/s(internal) and the 2 rear sata 3gb/s ports located on the I/O panel for external or "on the go" ports. You think it is interference somehow? I'll try connecting to ports 7 & 8 and see what happens...haven't previously tried it and they're sata II drives anyway....not sure if it has raid ability - probably doesn't since it's intended for optical drives... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yellowbeard Posted October 13, 2010 Share Posted October 13, 2010 Ok good to know about the secure erase. I did a full erase(first option) followed by a secure erase but still no luck. I am using the SB850 South Bridge controller to setup the raid array. I previously had a single Nova128g set up as both IDE and AHCI and had no problems detecting them once I loaded the drivers(none was needed for IDE only when I wanted to install win7 with AHCI mode on did I need the driver). Yes, there is 2 more controllers on this board for ports 7 & 8 - JMicron 363 Controllers for the 2 sata 3gb/s(internal) and the 2 rear sata 3gb/s ports located on the I/O panel for external or "on the go" ports. You think it is interference somehow? I have seen instances on some Intel based boards where the secondary controller interfered with the Intel ICH controller correctly identifying the drives. Try doing a secure erase again and not a full erase, then clearing the CMOS, then disabling the JMicron controllers temporarily, and try your install again on the SB850. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 I have seen instances on some Intel based boards where the secondary controller interfered with the Intel ICH controller correctly identifying the drives. Try doing a secure erase again and not a full erase, then clearing the CMOS, then disabling the JMicron controllers temporarily, and try your install again on the SB850. Hmm, ok. I will try just a secure erase but I don't believe there is a way to disable the second controller. I previously had wanted to do that just to decrease my load time a few secs but was unable to locate a BIOS option that configured it. I'll pull out the manual and double check. Thanks for the fast responses by the way, much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Yellowbeard, thanks a lot brother!! Was finally able to get it installing...already finishing as I write this. I found where I could disable the other controllers in bios too. My final steps were just as you suggested... Booted with parted magic, performed secure erase, shut down, cleared c-mos, started up and entered bios, disabled the secondary controllers, chose to boot to win7 setup, loaded RAID drivers, installed. Thanks again, I believe I was unlikely to discover the solution on my own so you helped a great deal man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimbrady Posted October 13, 2010 Author Share Posted October 13, 2010 Here's screenshots showing the performance I gained going from single SSD to 2x SSD: http://i55.tinypic.com/34j3m68.jpg single Nova128 as boot drive in AHCI mode http://i51.tinypic.com/f0wv2c.png double Nova128's as boot drives in RAID 0 :biggrin: pretty much right on par with what I was expecting. Still only getting a 7.4 in WEI...expected to make 7.7+ but who cares I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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