not installing properly, one HDD may not be recognized properly

[CovertDeath]

okay so I'm trying to install a new copy of Win7 onto my machine. i usually have my main drive as a RAID 0 setup of two WD 500Gb sata3 HDD's.

the problems first started upon first attempt. BIOS recognized my RAID, windows also recognized my RAID with full capacity. install went great until it was time to shutdown win7 for the first time. shutdown went fine but upon booting up, it said the propper boot media was missing or something, the only way i could get it to boot was with the install DVD in the drive.

well i figured that i simply messed up, so i repeated everything with the same results 3 times.

then i decided to disable my raid, so i deleted the RAID setup, set the BIOS into AHCI and started the install process, only this time not all of my seperated drives were recognized. only ONE of the TWO 500gb drives was noticed. i tried everything, i unplugged and replugged all the cables to both drives with no luck of changing anything.

i am not sure what happened but something is terribly wrong and i can't seem to figure it out. i'm currently creating a linux to boot up and see if linux will see the drive and see if maybe there was something left on there that is messing it up.

any advice would be much appreciated. this is becoming a very frustrating win7 reboot!

thanks,
Covert

 

[CovertDeath]

UPDATE:
okay so i booted off the linux live disk and it sees my hard drive just fine. no hidden partitions or anything, it offers to install on the drive and i see 500.1gb on it so i know nothing is missing or hidden

any help would be much appreciated since this SEEMS to be a windows 7 isolated issue for me

 

[gregrocker]

Win7 doesn't much like RAID as we see these at least weekly.

You found the solution which is to install to a single HD, but mistakenly left the other plugged in.

Wipe both HD's with Diskpart Clean Command, then power down to unplug all other HD's and peripherals except target HD for Clean Install Windows 7

After install plug in other HD, wipe it then partition for storage.

 

[CovertDeath]

Okay I figured it was something along those lines just didn't know what to do. After I get all my drives corrected will this help windows install properly or is the whole needing the DVD in boot drive thing a whole other issue? I'm inclined to believe they are related myself but Idk honestly.

I do plan on putting it back in raid 0 again once this mess is cleaned up.
I'm at work currently and will try any other suggestions tonight.

Thanks much,
Covert Death

 

[gregrocker]

The problem with needing DVD to boot the OS is likely solved by wiping the boot sector of problem code.

Otherwise it is repaired by Marking Active Win7 partition or it's 100mb System Reserved partition (preferred if you have it), then running Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times.

 

[CovertDeath]

By sector of problem code you mean on the hdd? In which case diskpart clean command should clear up? I tried marking both active and doing the repair probably 6-7 times but never got it to work for me

 

[gregrocker]

Try Clean command on HD, one HD plugged in for install.

 

[CovertDeath]

So don't do raid just to test it out and make sure all is well, is that what your saying lol? After I prove that the HD is functioning then do raid and all should be well?

 

[gregrocker]

Why do you want to use RAID? It isn't redundant so you lose both HD's if one fails. Much better to save a Win7 backup image to a separate storage HD.

I doubt whether it will install in RAID. All we see with RAID is problems.

 

[CovertDeath]

I've been operating with it on my raid drive for over a year now no problem I like the speed as it helps a lot with the CAD work I do

 

[gregrocker]

If you want speed I'd get an SSD. RAID confers no advantages I know of. At least try single HD to see for yourself.

You may be able to get RAID to install Win7 if you wipe the array with Diskpart Clean Command first.

 

[CovertDeath]

roger that.

yea i use RAID 0 (double the read/write and volume) it's a little risky as there is not way to secure the drive if info is lost its all gone but i back everything up over night.

during the day the double speeds really do come in handy when working with 200-300 mb SolidWorks CAD files. saving them takes many minutes and the advantage over single HD is very noticable.

i may use my 60gb SSD to be a boot drive and just RAID 0 the other two as a secondary drive if i still cant get it to work but that is a pain in the butt changing all the default install locations everytime something gets installed

 

[gregrocker]

Where did you get the idea that RAID0 doubles read/write speeds?

Have you used WIn7 without the dated, unnecessary and risky RAID?

What else would you use an SSD for except your OS drive where it counts?

 

[CovertDeath]

raid 0 stripes the data into data blocks and when files are larger... such as my CAD files that reach into the 300mb per file area that single file is split up into 64kb chunks and the chunks alternate on which physical drive they are saved on. chunk a gets written on drive 1 at the SAME TIME that chunk b gets written on drive 2

this means when saving a 300 mb file each physical drive only saves 150mb of it when in RAID 0 and doing them at the same time cuts the write time in half.

here is a video with slightly better description: skip to 2:15 or so for RAID 0 description
CompTIA A+ 220-601 (3.1), 220-602 (3.1) - Configuring RAID - YouTube

same thing applies for reading the data

i have a total of 400gb of cad files so they suck up a lot of space hence the RAID 0 instead of RAID 1

these have always been the advantages of RAID 0 and 1, great for boosting performance with the addition of a little risk of data loss hence the use of my 1tb nightly back up drive.


my SSD is used for games where data is actively loaded such as ARMA 2, this decreases game stutter and lag tremendously

 

[gregrocker]

I'd heard the RAID is best for handling large video files for editing, so perhaps this is similar.

 

[CovertDeath]

Raid is good for any multi HD setup really there are great advantages to each type of raid available, just depends what your looking for

 

[F5ing]

... these have always been the advantages of RAID 0 and 1, great for boosting performance with the addition of a little risk of data loss hence the use of my 1tb nightly back up drive...

Just curious, is it true hardware based RAID0 you're using? Meaning no offloading of processing outside of the RAID hardware itself. That's the only way I've noticed where you can get close to double speed reads/writes.

I note you've already given this some consideration, but you could think of RAID0 as being prone to double the chance of total data loss compared to a single drive, as failure of either drive blows it all away. I realize that's still fairly low risk, just mention it as something to think about.

RAID1 on the other hand would be half or less the risk (but no speed benefits for reads/writes). Half or less the risk meaning you would have to lose both drives before losing any data.

Then there are more possible points of failure if you consider the hardware/software complexities used to manage the arrays.

 

[CovertDeath]

currently yes i'm using hardware raid setup off an old RAID card from a friend, with this i'm seeing roughly %90 improvements for read and write.

software RAID wasn't all that bad on my setup though, it showed %75-%80 improvement for read write speeds.

and yes raid 0 is conceptually double the chance of data loss compared to single drive and raid 1 is half the chance. although with raid 1 as you mentioned WRITE speed is the same as single drive speeds since both disks are copies, but READ speed is doubled when in raid 1, the controller reads striped data from both drives, alternating information so you get it twice as fast. this is the true advantage of raid 1.

although i am thinking of switching to a RAID 5 setup sometime in the future if i get another 500gb HDD

this is truly the advantages of both worlds, no data is lost until TWO drives of the three fail. you get the capacity of 2 of three drives and you get double read/write speeds basically its raid 0 but you add another HDD in there for data security


on another note looks like i need to update my PC hardware lol, specs are a lil dated

 

[F5ing]

I gotcha. Just wanted to raise awareness of the increased chances of failure. Obviously you've done your homework on it, and set things up as you see fit. I've seen folks who wanted RAID setups, had RAID setups, oftentimes because of all the good stuff they've heard about RAID without seriously taking into account it's disadvantages. In most situations the benefits they achieve with it are not even being realized because of the way they use their machines. Some seem to think mirroring qualifies as backup. And then there's management of the array that sometimes goes awry.

I mentioned the RAID1 read/write performance as no improvement as some RAID systems do not take advantage of the ability to do simultaneous reads. I'm pretty sure those were all software based RAIDs though.

I've not messed with many software based RAID0's but I'm surprised to hear of the level of performance you've observed. I've never done any "benchmarking", but it seems about the best I've estimated was somewhat less than 50%. 75 - 80% is really pretty darn good.