Help Needed....BSOD during Windows 7 Installation

[Golden]

Hi Everyone,

It's a sad day - my PC was turned off at the wall switch sometime during the boot-up/load. I couldn't get it too reboot after this, and system restore just resulted in a BSOD (I dont have the details for that BSOD unfortunately).

I decided to re-install from scratch using 2 x brand new Samsung F3 SATAII drives I purchased. I decided to setup a RAID0. This is what I did:

1. Install drives into MOBO (see system specs)
2. Enter BIOS and configured RAID0, saved and exit
3. Boot from Windows 7 x64 Ultimate disk
4. New drives found
5. Installed RAID driver for x64
6. Proceed to installation

During the expanding of the installation files, after a few percent progress, I get the BSOD shown. The error main message is:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I'm lost as to what the issue might be. Could it be a RAM or MOBO problem? Surely, I wouldn't even be able to start the installation if it was? Perhaps I should default my BIOS settings to factory settings and try again?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm lost as to where to start.

Thanks,
Golden

 

[yowanvista]

You can try this
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

 

[Golden]

Thanks youanvista, but these are brand new drives...straight out of the packet. Surely they don't require any cleaning? I don't see how the cleaning will fix the problem, or am I missing something?

Thanks,
Golden

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Golden.



As you say, the easiest place to start would be to reset the CMOS and start over; then RAM would be the next place to start.



Could it be that the HDDs have lost the connection to the mobo?

 

[Golden]

Thanks BarefootKid. Nope the drives are definately connected to the MOBO since the are available for partioning. If I replicate the problem, which I can, I can still see them - both at the POST whiches shows them correctly as RAID0, and then later on when selecting the partition to install too.

I have been doing some research, and wonder whether I have a bum RAID driver/controller - the one on the Gigabyte disk is quite probably a Vista one (the disk says support for Windows7), and I wonder if Windows 7 is having issues with it.

I'm trying to find a controller for Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID Controller but not having much luck - it needs to be one that I can copy to USB, anf then load during Windows installtion.

In the meantime I'm going to attempt a standard SATA install since Windows has the drivers for that, and see how far that gets me...

 

[Golden]

UPDATE:

OK, I can succesfully install as a single disk (non-RAID) using SATA IDE, so the problem seems to lie with the RAID configuration. Im pretty sure I did it correctly, so the problem must lie with the driver/controller unless anyone else has other suggestions...?

I'm only thankful thats it doesn't appear to be any of my other components (cross fingers)

Is it possible to build a RAID from within Windows? I suppose not and therein lies the problem...I think I need to find genuine Windows 7 x64 Intel drivers/controllers.....

Thanks for your efforts so far. Hopefully I can find a solution to the RAID issue......any help is still very much appreciated

Thanks,
Golden