Windows 7: No Drive Letter For RAID 1 Volume

I'd appreciate some help. I'm setting up 2 x Western Digital RE4’s in RAID 1 for Data Storage in a Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit system that is using a single SSD for the OS.


The two RE4’s have been set up in the option ROM and when the OS completes startup, Rapid Storage Technology indicates that the drives were set up correctly in RAID 1.



The drives have been initialized. However, the RAID Volume is not being seen by the OS.


Here’s what I’ve tried: I right-click on ‘Computer’, left-click on ‘Manage’ which takes me into Computer Management. I then left-click on disk management which provides a graphic on the right side of the screen of the unallocated RAID volume. Right-clicking on the unallocated graphic provides the choice of: ‘New Simple Volume’, ‘New Spanned Volume’, ‘New Striped Volume’, ‘New Mirrored Volume’, ‘Properties’, and ‘Help’. Note: “Change drive letter and path” is NOT available as an option.


From there, I’m not sure how to proceed. The graphical representation of the unallocated volume is the RAID Array. I don’t want to create another RAID 1 Volume.




Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Sndz

Hi,

You need to select New Mirrored Volume.

RAID0 = striped
RAID1 = mirrored

Regards,
Golden

Golden. Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, "New Mirrored Volume" is greyed out. The only option available is "New Simple Volume".

Anyone else with suggestions about how to get this Raid Volume seen by Win 7?

You need to load the array drivers, this can't be done from Windows, and Windows can't see the array until the drivers are loaded. You need a cd a bootable USB or even a diskette.

I can try to walk you through it, but it might take a moment. Let me know if you would like me to try.

Regards....Mike Connor

Have you tried simple volume?

Just quickly;

QUOTE
"Thank you for reviewing this motherboard. However, this board does support RAID 0/1/5/10 on SATA III. In order to access the RAID configuration utility for SATA6G you must first enter the BIOS and set the SATA6G option to 'AHCI'. Then you can save an exit the BIOS and during POST upon reboot press Ctrl+M to enter the RAID configuration utility. If you need further assistance, please contact us at OC_Support and reference case number NE0480."

Best Regards,

UNQUOTE

Further;

Once the BIOS is set to RAID press <CTRL><I> during POST. An option will come up for about half a second to set the RAID up.

Then select the drives you want in the RAID.

Install the RAID drivers supplied by ASUS. ( Come with the motherboard ).

You need to do this before installing an OS on the array, and you need to do it before Windows boots if you are installing storage. Otherwise Windows will not "see" the drive array.

There are instructions in the motherboard handbook.

Regards....Mike Connor

Thank you for downloading Asus Rampage III Extreme Manual from iUserManual.com.

This suggests the RAID has already been configured in the BIOS. Can you confirm this is the case?

Under Disk Management, do you see 2 x RE4 drives, or just a single volume? If its a single volume then the disks have already been RAID'ed in the BIOS.

I think people are overthinking this issue a bit. The volume is seen by the OS, this indicates the RAID drivers are working. Actually, the OS shouldn't be doing anything related to the RAID in this setup, the mirroring should be at the hardware level. That being the case, just right-click and select to create a new simple volume, make it the size and letter you want and format it. Keep in mind, I've never played with mirroring on a desktop PC level but I do have a good grasp of the concepts, I'm part of a support team at a 4,000-seat business campus with several hundred HP servers as well.

In a mirrored situation, you won't see much change to the drive at the OS level but if a drive fails you'll be able to replace it with little to no data loss. Mirroring is good protection against a catastrophic drive failure but in the event of a virus in the volume it will infect BOTH drives.