RAID setup problems with Vista install

justinmg · 26 Mar 2009 at 22:25

I have installed 2 samsung SSD on an Adaptec 1220SA controller. The setup utility was fine, and at startup 2 disks are seen as one logical drive.

I then put my Vista disk in to install a fresh OS. The array is not shown, so I click "add driver", and put in a floppy with the driver. It shows the correct one, apparently loads, but then the array is still not visible. Arrays are new to me, there must be something that I am missing, but what!??

rpstewart · 27 Mar 2009 at 09:34

Sounds like a driver problem. Have you tried grabbing the appropriate one from here?

justinmg · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:25

I used those drivers :-(

Adaptec told me to change the PCI port - no joy.

When installing the drivers for an old Vista setup, they seem to install correctly, but again no new devices are shown.
There is a faulty IDE driver showing (which is an old problem I think). Reinstalling this makes no difference.

Could this be a hardware conflict, as it affects both a fresh install and an old install? I guess it is either that or a faulty card (but it seems to work fine from the BIOS setup menus!!)

rpstewart · 28 Mar 2009 at 10:08

Everything looks OK. The card seems to be working in the old Vista install which kinda rules out the drivers too. You've said the array looks ok in the card BIOS so that's another thing ruled out.

Can you see the array in the old Vista install?

justinmg · 28 Mar 2009 at 21:52

Just tried one of the drives on the mobo instead of the RAID controller, and it is not seen either, so this is loking like a faulty drive.

It is detected correctly by the BIOS, reported healthy by the controller card, but does not show in Vista (whereas the other drive is fine).

justinmg · 29 Mar 2009 at 19:42

I tried reformatting both drives from the RAID card. No joy.

When plugging both these directly into the mobo, neither are not seen in Vista now!
If I look in disk management, both show, but there is no initialize option. If I try to set up a simple volume, I get a not initialised error message.

I am beginning to think that all the hardware works, and I just have not prepped everything correctly.

rpstewart · 29 Mar 2009 at 20:38

Where are you right clicking to try and intiailise them? The option should be from a right click on the grey area to the left of the bar.

justinmg · 29 Mar 2009 at 22:39

Thanks for that. You were right. I was clicking on the unallocated space rather than the drive letter.
Both the drives are now working as simple volumes on Vista, but still if plugged into the RAID card, they are not seen. This must be either a faulty raid card, or an incompatibility.
Can anyone suggest a different pci 1x sata II raid controller?

rpstewart · 30 Mar 2009 at 10:15

Have you tried running the drives as individuals on the Adaptec card rather than in an array?

FaceplantSi · 30 Mar 2009 at 10:47

What is you system spec... specifically what mobo do you have and can you do RAID directly from the onboard SATA ports? Mine does but it needs the BIOS configuring to tell it that the SATA ports are RAID rather than in IDE or AHCI modes. Might be worth having a browse around your BIOS settings.

justinmg · 30 Mar 2009 at 14:01

My mobo is Gigabyte 945 pls3 (no raid).

Adaptec asked me to try a clean windows install using an old SATA drive, instead of the Samsubg SSDs. The drivers and RAID card worked first time.

So the upshot is: the 1220SA card is not compatible with these drives.

So if I want RAID, then I need to find a new card, or a new mobo!

Thanks to all so far esp. rpstewart for the help.

Justin