I think I know the solution here but don't know how to implement it...here's the problem:

I originally installed Windows 7 on a RAID 0 set. In the BIOS the storage mode is RAID (nForce software RAID). Worked fine for a couple years, but now one of the disks is giving me issues so I needed to reinstall.

Because the boot disk was a RAID set none of the built in Windows tools works for creating a system image. I tried Acronis Drive Image but had some issues and it didn't work either.

I only have an "upgrade" version of Windows 7 so I cannot install directly onto bare metal, so I when I decided to reinstall Windows I had to do it from within the currently running version of Windows I have (still in RAID mode) onto a new, single HDD.

It appears that the BIOS is handing over the boot process to the RAID set and pulling drivers from there so that Windows can boot. I can boot off of the new HDD running the fresh version of Windows but only if the old RAID set is still installed. If I pull those disks, the system will not boot.

I think the solution is to get the necessary AHCI drivers onto the new boot disk so that when I switch the BIOS to AHCI mode it has access to the correct drivers and boots. That way I can pull the malfunctioning RAID disks completely. The problem is that I cannot find a definitive answer as to which drivers to install, where to put them, and what registry entries to possibly change. I have found several posts online that make it sound like you can do this simply through registry tweaks but I have tried and it doesn't seem to work.

This is pretty far fetched, so if anyone has any idea I would appreciate any thoughts and advice. Worst case I leave it as is and hope disks in the RAID set don't die...

[Edited on August 23, 2011 at 9:24 PM. Reason : Also I'm aware it was stupid to have a RAID 0 boot disk...lesson learned ]

8/23/2011 9:22:40 PM

Quote :

"I only have an "upgrade" version of Windows 7 so I cannot install directly onto bare metal"

FALSE

Pull the RAID disks. Install windows on the new drive. You should be able to plug the RAID disks back in a read them just like any non-boot drive assuming that both HDDs are working.

What chipset is your motherboard?

8/23/2011 10:12:23 PM

Ok you are right, technically there are workarounds to install the upgrade version without actually "upgrading", but I've already installed it on the new drive.

Honestly I don't want the RAID set anymore. Ideally I'd like to have Windows booting off the new single drive in AHCI mode and toss the 2 drives in the RAID set.

8/23/2011 10:53:42 PM

My experience with my upgrade disk is that you use it like a normal disk and don't worry about it. It has never hassled me about installing on a new drive. No workarounds needed.

8/24/2011 12:29:43 PM

your message is pretty confusing but;

Quote :

"Because the boot disk was a RAID set none of the built in Windows tools works for creating a system image. I tried Acronis Drive Image but had some issues and it didn't work either."

as long as the windows tool has the correct nForce software RAID driver, then it should be able to read from the RAID array. *however, you said that one of the disks is having problems, so in that case I don't see how you could expect to get a good backup from the RAID-0 array.

Quote :

"If I pull those disks, the system will not boot."

this sounds like somehow your new windows installation on a standalone disk is bootstrapping off of the MBR of the raid0 array. to fix this i'd recommend removing the raid0 array completely and google "windows 7 mbr" to get the mbr installed on the new single hdd.


you stated the obvious lesson:

Quote :

"Also I'm aware it was stupid to have a RAID 0 boot disk."

might want to consider getting a cheap reliable ssd for the OS disk and use raid0 for just your temporary/scratch/unimportant stuff that you can recover from losing

8/26/2011 12:25:33 AM

Thank you! I was looking at this from the wrong angle. Turns out the RAID setting in BIOS enables all of the AHCI features as well, so no need to change.

The issue was that when I installed Windows on the new disk, it found the old "System Reserved" drive which had the MBR and all the boot files on it, so it didn't create a new one. When I pulled the old RAID drives, it didn't have anywhere to boot from.

It took a bit of screwing around in Windows RE but I finally got it to write a new boot sector and all is well. Pulled the 2 old RAID disks and it boots perfectly. Thanks for the tip!

8/26/2011 11:46:32 PM