nforce3 RAID setup

djtnt · 22 Nov 2009

Hello,
Need some help setting up a RAID 0 setup for a spare disc on my Win 7 64 bit system.

Asus K8N-E Deluxe motherboard. Win 7 installed on a RAID 0 array running off the Si3114 onboard controller.

I have two spare 250gb drives that I attached to the SATA1 and SATA2 ports on the MB, and activated the Nvidia RAID in the BIOS. Set up the two drives as a RAID 0 striped set in bios, and then booted off the Si3114 RAID set.

Windows does not see the Nvidia RAID 0 array. Device manager says the NVIDIA nforce RAID Controller 10.6.0.16 is installed and running (see attached nvraid1.jpg).

Disc management sees the two drives, and pop's up the window seen in nvraid2.jpg. Nvraid3.jpg is the main management window.

My question is, how do I go about getting the Nvidia RAID controller to recognize the nvidia RAID 0 array as a single disc in Win 7, not as two 250gb SATA discs?

Thanks for any help provided.

crnv88 · 23 Nov 2009

I have the same motherboard and have had "fun" installing and running Win 7. Drivers have been and still are an issue for me. I could use some help with that.

Now for your problem (which I had too), go into the BIOS to make sure RAID is enabled (OK, you say you did that already). Then during posting press F10 or F4 (I can't remember which one is Sil and which is nVidia) to make sure you have a RAID Array configured.

I had mine set up properly in the BIOS but for whatever reason, it wasn't configured during posting. It was was before but then it messed up for some unknown reason. If I remember correctly, this has happened to me again...strange. Fortunately, I am running RAID Mirroring and so didn't lose any info by rebuilding the RAID Array.

As a side note trying to install to the nVidia Mirroring Array to begin with did not work for me. After rebooting, I some weird symbols on the monitor at the end of the posting when it should have been going to the boot GUI.

Something else I had to do (I have installed several times) is if Windows does see it gut get the Access Denied message, then I had to take ownership of that drive (partition). Right click it, properties, security tab and then take ownership.