Windows 7: "windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer..."

I've recently gone out and bought 4 HDDs to run as a raid 10, now I am using my motherboards onboard fakeraid a ihc10r. The cables are fine and when I try and install windows 7 (pro 64x) onto each individual drive with raid and ahci turned off in bios windows installs just fine. Now when I raid the drives as raid 10 windows install can see the drive and even then I load the drivers just to be sure iastor.sys etc (I've tried with and without) the same thing happens every time after the first reboot I get about 10 minutes in and about 2 mins after the screen resolution is adjusted BOOM "windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer's hardware". I've also tried installing with 1 hdd plugged in, raid turned on in bios but no array setup and it also fails at the same point. It's pretty wierd.





I did a memtest and it passed this, I also have the jmicron piece of garbage on my MB turned off. Furthermore the install proceeds when the SATA controller is in AHCI mode BUT not in raid mode.


Thanks in advance.

Hello Ijurgs Welcome to the Seven Forums!

I think you may be running into a board limitation which only allows arrays in pairs of drives. For Raid 10 that involves Striping or Spanning across 4 HJDs while a basic array is what is allowed there with a pair for Raid 0 or 1 type.

You may end up with a pair of arrays only seeing 7 installed to one and simply seeing the second used for storage and backup purposes unless you are able to span a volume across all four rather then seeing a striping array set up. WiebeTech Micro Storage Solutions - RAID

I have exactly the same problem. Did you find a solution in the end?

Here is my problem summary which I have sent to Gigabyte support. I'm still awaiting their response.

Hardware:
- Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 (Rev 2.0)
- Intel Core i5-760 CPU
- Corsair DDR3 4GB ram kit
- 2 x WD Green 1TB hard drives (WD10EARS)


Configuration notes:
1.I have 2 hard drives plugged in to the blue Intel SATA ports (Ports 0 and 1) on the motherboard.
2.In the BIOS settings under “Integrated Peripherals” I have changed the setting for “PCH SATA Control Mode” to “RAID (XHD)”.
3.“eXtreme Hard Drive (XHD)” has been left “Disabled”
4.Using Ctrl-I during start-up I have created a Mirrored RAID setup.

Problem:
While installing Windows 7 Professional 32-bit I get all the way through to the very last part of the installation (just before it asks you to name the PC and create a user), and then it stops and displays this error:

“Windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer's hardware”

Other tests performed:

1. I turned RAID off in the BIOS and deleted the partitions on each of the RAID hard drives, then tried to install Windows in non-RAID mode. Windows installed normally and worked fine with RAID turned off.
2. I turned “eXtreme Hard Drive (XHD)” to "Enabled" but this did not fix the problem.

Hello GZed Welcome to the Seven Forums!

Now try changing the setting to "Native ide". I think you will get a lot further. I run two pairs of 1tb drives on the first two as well as channels 4 + 5 for the pair of Sata III storage drives. When initially setting up a recent build first on one of the Sata III drives the solution for any installation or "problems seen" was to place the mode to the Native ide setting unless you are able to get the AHCI drivers on and work for that option.

I didn't find any bios combination that worked in my case, I installed Windows 7 on a single drive, imaged it straight up, setup the raid and pulled the image down onto the array via Windows 7 setup.

After the image was first created did you repartition/reformat the arrayed pair of drives once the bios setting was changed? I think the image from a single drive is finding some problems on the array!

When seeing an array last year while running the RCs the installation went well by first nuking both drives first and then enabling the bios setting needed at the time. The two drives locked together as one once they were repartitioned and reformatted as one to see a clean install then.

You may end up having to do the exact same there as well while arrays mainly serve best for servers and storage purposes especially if those are the WD Green Power models you have in your specs! Oh yeah I had some fun with 1 500gb model removed from the MyBookl enclosure to use internally when needing an extra drive.

They do well for storage but not OSing! as problems kept appearing for any problems installed mainly since those are the low performance energy savers series not the higher performers you look for to run Windows on.

The pair used for the array however were the SE models on the old case on an older case at the time and synced well together while seeing a clean install from the start. I think that is a big part of the problem you are running into there besides trying to keep things in the ide mode rather then leaning at anything like AHCI.

The one problem I did run into here with that array wasn't geting 7 on but once I went to break the array up it took a bit like one nuked with the other unplugged while the second had to see the first plugged in while being nuked! That's how those two were bonding!

Thanks for your replies.

I switched the SATA mode to "Legacy IDE" (it was previously set to Native IDE), but it didn't help - still got the same error at the same stage of the installation.

I had messed with both hard drives so much that started to suspect the same thing, so I grabbed two brand new hard drives out of their bags, plugged them in, set up the mirrored RAID again and tried another install - same result.

I have just finished succesfully installing Windows 7 on a mirrored RAID on this PC. Sadly though, I did not find a work around for the Intel RAID problem with this setup.

What I did was I plugged both hard drives into the two white SATA sockets on the motherboard - these ports are controlled by the Gigabyte SATA2/PATA add-on chip. I then disabled the RAID for the Intel chip and enabled RAID for the Gigabyte chip. Hit Ctrl-G during setup and configured the mirrored RAID. During the Windows install I needed to insert the driver CD to load the RAID drivers - no problem there. After that the Windows 7 installation completed normally and runs fine.

I suspect that this particular motherboard and BIOS version has a wierd problem that needs sorting out. Its especially strange considering that I personally have a very similar motherboard (GA-P55A-UD3R) running Windows 7 from 2 x 2TB WD Green hard drives, while plugged in to the Intel ports and setup as a mirrored RAID. Its almost the same setup and yet one works and one dosen't - very strange.

The other board having a slightly different chipset and bios as well as a totally different pair of drives are the two likely reasons for seeing that. The one thing to know about arrays is that they can be fragile at times. And if one of the drives lets go you get sunk if you don't everything already backed up elsewhere.

When picking out drives for the recent build here the first pair saw the main OS with the second used as a test vehicle for trying out various setups as well as beta releases. The other 3(2 Black edition internal, 1 GP external) simply became storage and backup drives with each being separate there as well. I leave the arrays for server application.