No Drive Letter For RAID 1 Volume

[sandoz]

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

 

[Golden]

Hi,

You need to select New Mirrored Volume.

RAID0 = striped
RAID1 = mirrored

Regards,
Golden

 

[sandoz]

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".

 

[sandoz]

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

 

[Mike Connor]

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

 

[Golden]

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".

Have you tried simple volume?

 

[Mike Connor]

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

 

[Mike Connor]

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

 

[Golden]

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.

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.

 

[mlevy]

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.

 

[Packet]

just choose new simple volume, format and you'll be able to assign it a drive letter. (7 will auto-align, i believe, so dont worry about that)
it's hardware raid so you will see just one huge drive / chunk of space.

 

[sandoz]

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

@Mike Connor: the motherboard in question is an Asus Rampage III Extreme. The RAID 1 setup in question was NOT setup through the Marvel 9128 SATA6G controller, but rather through the Intel ICH10R Southbridge controller by pressing Cntrl +I during post. ICH10R supports RAID 1. Regarding settings, the SATA6G controller is set to “ACHI” for the single SSD where the OS resides (RAID ready); the six ICH10R SATA ports are configured as “RAID”. These settings were in place before the OS was installed.

The latest Intel Rapid Storage Manager drivers (v9.6.0.1014) have been installed to update Intel Matrix Storage.

The drives for selection in the RAID 1 array were chosen in the Option Rom Bios after pressing Cntrl +I during post. Thus, this is a hardware RAID setup.

 

[sandoz]

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.

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.

[FONT=&quot]@Golden: Yes, RAID is already configured in the BIOS. And, under Disk Management, there is only 1 disk seen. Note that when I open the Rapid Storage Technology console, it shows the two RE4 disks in the array and identifies them as constituents of the RAID 1 volume. [/FONT]

 

[sandoz]

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.

@mlevy: ‘New Simple Volume’ is the only option available when right clicking the unallocated disk (labeled Disk 0). The OS is on Disk 1 (Crucial 300 SSD).

 

[sandoz]

just choose new simple volume, format and you'll be able to assign it a drive letter. (7 will auto-align, i believe, so dont worry about that)
it's hardware raid so you will see just one huge drive / chunk of space.

@packet: both RE4's are already formatted. Does that matter, or will it just reformat the drives?

 

[WindowsStar]

just choose new simple volume, format and you'll be able to assign it a drive letter. (7 will auto-align, i believe, so dont worry about that)
it's hardware raid so you will see just one huge drive / chunk of space.

@packet: both RE4's are already formatted. Does that matter, or will it just reformat the drives?

When you setup the RAID they became unformatted. It does not matter if they were formatted before you setup the RAID they are now unformatted. So you need to create the partition and format them. The OS is only seeing ONE BARE drive, because the RAID 1 is handled by the RAID controller. So just as if you installed 1 single unformatted drive you would need to partition and format the drive.

The advice given to create the partition and format is correct. -WS

 

[Golden]

Thats correct : reformat them under disk management and assign the drive letter - you should be good to go.

 

[sandoz]

Thats correct : reformat them under disk management and assign the drive letter - you should be good to go.

Thanks for the confirmation. BTW, is 64KB the best unit sector size for performance in RAID1 (will be using storage mostly for music and video archive) or should I just go with default?

 

[Here To Help]

Go to disk management and format the raided drives. You will see them in disk managment.

 

[sandoz]

Worked well. Thank you for your assistance everyone.