Windows 7 dies on startup when raid 1 created

Soldato
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19 Oct 2008
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Anyone else had this problem. I have three disks, all were run as standalone disks when I installed Windows 7 on the smallest of the three. Once installed I had to get data off of one of the other two disks which I did by copying stuff all over the place (to Windows 7 C drive, memory sticks, external passport drive). After doing this I went into the BIOS to configure the raid 1 made up of the two large disks. There were two places I saw the Raid Mode option. The first Raid Mode setting only had the values of "AHCI or IDE" to select from so I left it at default (IDE). The second Raid Mode setting I found was under the On ATA Chip section (or similarly named) which had the values "RAID, IDE, AHCI" for Raid Mode. It was already at IDE so I set this one to RAID.

Next up I rebooted the machine and then saw the raid display which was now displayed so hit CTRL-I to go into the raid configuration. I configured the raid and saved.

After doing this I rebooted the box but now after intially seeing the Windows 7 animation as Windows 7 starts to load it just blue screens and instantly reboots and gets stuck in this loop of blue screening and rebooting.

Anyone had this? Windows does give me the option of trying to recover but haven`t tried this yet as I don`t want to reinstall due to crucial data being spread across the C drive that I need to preserve.

Nothing is ever easy! When I set the raid option back to IDE (not RAID) and reboot all is fine but of coruse the two disks show up as individual drives again.

I am assuming the C drive is recognised as Windows 7 starts to boot (with the animation that appears as it loads) but the animimation just freezes before blue screening and rebooting
 
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Pretty sure you should be added RAID drivers to Windows during the install process, the way you're doing it is back to front, Windows doesn't have a clue about the RAID option on your motherboard as you've only just enabled it and it hasn't had a chance to install any drivers.

Is there an option to enable RAID but not configure the disks? That way at least Windows gets a chance to install drivers for it, then it MAY work, although I'm doubtful.

Whenever I've done this I've had to add RAID drivers at Windows install or in the case of Windows 7 had the drives setup for RAID before starting the Windows 7 install - it detected RAID and setup the drivers itself.
 
It's pretty much as above. I imagine all the disks are on the same controller - even though you're not configuring the boot drive as part of a RAID array, it's still now attached to the now-enabled RAID controller. Windows will need RAID drivers to access it, but it's trying to use bog standard IDE drivers - so it fails.

What you should have done is install windows with the RAID enabled and feed it the drivers on boot.

There possibly is a way to do it retrospectively - have a google. In XP/2003 and earlier, I'd've just done a repair install at this point.
 
Thanks, I`ll try enabling the RAID but not configuring the disks (I`ll delete the raid first)to see if Windows can install the drivers itself. If that doesn`t work I`ll see if I can either install the raid drivers into Windows if I can download them from MSI, or if not then I`ll have to move some of my backup files I put onto the C partition and then reinstall windows once I have setup the raid for the other two disks - hopefully the data on the other two partitions of the drive that C is on will be recognised afterwards :).
 
Okay, the only way to fix this was to set up the raid and then do a reinstall of Windows 7. I didn`t have to feed the setup process any drivers or anything,the install process just handled it.

A bug for MS to fix I think. Given the plug and play abilities of the OS`s of today, you`d think either Windows would handle a change to a raid config without intervention(the preferable method), or it would assist you in getting it working (such as prompting for drivers or the WIndows 7 DVD), or at least it would give some kind of warning on the screen with instructions to follow - just blue screening and instantly rebooting isn`t good! :)
 
Darren, an OS can't install drivers until the OS has loaded, that's the problem you had. It wouldn't matter what OS you had it'd still have these problems due to the millions of different RAID controllers out there. It can't try to load them all on the off chance you've installed/enabled one, boot times would take hours! You've contradicted yourself too, you said at reinstall windows install handled it for you - yet you're asking for it to do just that later on. Fact is it can't install what isn't enabled, that's a motherboard manufacturer problem, or dare I say it lack of user planning! ;)
 
Darren, an OS can't install drivers until the OS has loaded, that's the problem you had. It wouldn't matter what OS you had it'd still have these problems due to the millions of different RAID controllers out there. It can't try to load them all on the off chance you've installed/enabled one, boot times would take hours! You've contradicted yourself too, you said at reinstall windows install handled it for you - yet you're asking for it to do just that later on. Fact is it can't install what isn't enabled, that's a motherboard manufacturer problem, or dare I say it lack of user planning! ;)

The OS had already partly loaded when it suddenly blue screened and rebooted. There should be detection mechanisms in place to detect changes to hardware etc just as the Windows 7 setup detected the raid and installed correctly when I did a fresh install.

It really wouldn`t be that difficult for the OS to detect hardware changes, then prompt you to insert the WIndows 7 DVD - using the same functions/procedures the Windows 7 install uses to then at that point install additional system drivers.

So Windows installed everything fine when I did a complete reinstall, yet couldn`t detect and install the drivers etc that obviously exist on the Windows 7 DVD for a hardware change (with thehelp of the user reinserting Windows 7 DVD)

I didn`t contradict myself, I mean even though I sussed it out, do you think it is a good user experience to be presented with the blue screen of death temporarily before a reboot occurs which then gets stuck in a constant reboot.

Do you think people might want to start off with one drive but then later have a mirrored raid setup in the machine without being forced to do a reinstall of the OS? Is that too much to ask? I don`t think so.

PS I`m involed in Software Development myself and know when things can be improved on and easily handled. Windows 7 did NOT handle that exception well enough and user experience was therefore poor
 
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You`re talking rubbish. The OS had already partly loaded when it suddenly blue screened and rebooted. There should be detection mechanisms in place to detect changes to hardware etc just as the Windows 7 setup detected the raid and installed correctly.
That's literally just the bootloader. It then loads the installed driver to access the disk, and it can't access the disk because the driver is now incorrect. It then fails.

Nothing's ever been built in to deal with this, because it's not really that common for a user to do this.
 
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