New gaming PC project:
Asus Rampage Extreme IV
I7 3960x
32gb Gskill 2133 mhz
Sound Blaster Recon 3D
2 Corsair Force GT 60gb sata3
2 Corsair Force GT 120gb sata3
Win7 home 64bit w/anytime upgrade to Professional (Didn't know about the 16gb ram cap...)
9800 GTX video (ran outta money...)
I apologize this might be lengthy...
The issue I'm having is everything seems fine till the first reboot, then I get errors about some random important file is missing or corrupt, please insert your DVD and repair windows or whatever the hell it says. The specified missing file is always different each install attempt (I have made about 30ish attemps so far in every drive configuration I could think of). Once it even said 'a system file' is missing or corrupt with no file specified. One attempt (120gb drives in raid0 with no other drives attached) did make it to the Win7 load screen, but then windows encountered an 'unknown error' and had to close while finalizing.
What I wanted to do was raid0 the 60's for boot and raid0 the 120's for games, but I can't do that because while this mb has 4 sata3 ports, only 2 ports are raid capable (Intel C600 controller) as the other 2 are on an ASMedia controller. As that is the least of my problems and only my fault for making assumptions before I buy crap, what I thought to do instead was install win on one 60 on the ASMedia sata3 controller in AHCI with OPROM enabled, use the other 60 for task file, and raid0 the 120's for game installs.
At first I thought the problem was bad drives because it installs fine on my old HDDs, but all 4 drives DOA seems unlikely so I figure I'm doing something wrong. There are multiple posts about issues with these drives on Corsair forums, however none of their solutions provide a fix. Currently I have Win7 installed on 2 seagate 160gb HDD's in raid0 on sata2 with both 60's on sata3 ASMedia and both 120's in raid0 on sata3 Intel C600 controller. I am convinced there is no problem with any drive as I have multiple games installed on the raid0 with task file on 1 60 and the other 60 is dedicated to ready boost. Honestly I have no idea what ready boost does, and with 32gb of ram it probably doesnt do much - but I can't think of anything else to do with the drive to see if I get any system hangs or issues. After a week in this configuration I have had no issues whatsoever.
I have run error checking from the properties tab in win for all drives, as well as chkdsk from command prompt and the disk checking utility in partedmagic which all came back no problems found. ATTO benchmark shows the the 60's around 475mb/s read/write and the 120's in raid0 are about 1100mb/s read/write
. These SSD's are lightning fast. My HDD's are not - 275mb/s read/write in raid0 
. Must needs faster boot.
I have tried installing win on each drive individually on each controller twice (16 attemps of my life wasted) and tried each set in raid0 a few times. Every attempt started out with a partition deletion and a secure erase using partedmagic AND sata3 controller in AHCI mode per Corsair forums. I have done Corsair's 1.3.3 firmware update to each drive. I have tried letting windows partition/format each drive during the install. I tried booting from my HDD's, then creating partition tables, allocating sapce, and formatting the SSD's from disk management, then installing win on the drives already setup. And a few other various things in different orders.
My steps for the 1 result that yeilded and actual win7 loading screen after 1st reboot:
2 120gb ssd's on Intel C600 sata3
enter bios - change sata from raid to ahci - exit
boot with partedmagic bootdisk - deleted partitions both drives - system suspend for drive reset - secure erase both drives - shutdown
plugged in 2 160gb hdd to sata2
enter bios - change sata from ahci to raid - exit
enter raid setup utility - create raid0 on 120gb ssd's with 32kb strip - exit
boot win from hdd - create MBR partition table, allocate all avail space, format NTFS (not quick format) - shutdown
unplugged 2 160gb hdd
boot from win7 install disk - install to SSD raid volume - 1st reboot yeilds load screen then 'unknown error', but i guess it was some-what better than windows failed to start due to whatever random file missing or corrupt.
I don't know what else to try - I'm hoping i'm making some obvious mistake I keep overlooking that one of you can point out or something that needs to be done for booting from SSD's I don't know about.
-Sorry for the long post
-Thank you for taking the time
Asus Rampage Extreme IV
I7 3960x
32gb Gskill 2133 mhz
Sound Blaster Recon 3D
2 Corsair Force GT 60gb sata3
2 Corsair Force GT 120gb sata3
Win7 home 64bit w/anytime upgrade to Professional (Didn't know about the 16gb ram cap...)
9800 GTX video (ran outta money...)
I apologize this might be lengthy...
The issue I'm having is everything seems fine till the first reboot, then I get errors about some random important file is missing or corrupt, please insert your DVD and repair windows or whatever the hell it says. The specified missing file is always different each install attempt (I have made about 30ish attemps so far in every drive configuration I could think of). Once it even said 'a system file' is missing or corrupt with no file specified. One attempt (120gb drives in raid0 with no other drives attached) did make it to the Win7 load screen, but then windows encountered an 'unknown error' and had to close while finalizing.
What I wanted to do was raid0 the 60's for boot and raid0 the 120's for games, but I can't do that because while this mb has 4 sata3 ports, only 2 ports are raid capable (Intel C600 controller) as the other 2 are on an ASMedia controller. As that is the least of my problems and only my fault for making assumptions before I buy crap, what I thought to do instead was install win on one 60 on the ASMedia sata3 controller in AHCI with OPROM enabled, use the other 60 for task file, and raid0 the 120's for game installs.
At first I thought the problem was bad drives because it installs fine on my old HDDs, but all 4 drives DOA seems unlikely so I figure I'm doing something wrong. There are multiple posts about issues with these drives on Corsair forums, however none of their solutions provide a fix. Currently I have Win7 installed on 2 seagate 160gb HDD's in raid0 on sata2 with both 60's on sata3 ASMedia and both 120's in raid0 on sata3 Intel C600 controller. I am convinced there is no problem with any drive as I have multiple games installed on the raid0 with task file on 1 60 and the other 60 is dedicated to ready boost. Honestly I have no idea what ready boost does, and with 32gb of ram it probably doesnt do much - but I can't think of anything else to do with the drive to see if I get any system hangs or issues. After a week in this configuration I have had no issues whatsoever.
I have run error checking from the properties tab in win for all drives, as well as chkdsk from command prompt and the disk checking utility in partedmagic which all came back no problems found. ATTO benchmark shows the the 60's around 475mb/s read/write and the 120's in raid0 are about 1100mb/s read/write
. These SSD's are lightning fast. My HDD's are not - 275mb/s read/write in raid0 . Must needs faster boot.I have tried installing win on each drive individually on each controller twice (16 attemps of my life wasted) and tried each set in raid0 a few times. Every attempt started out with a partition deletion and a secure erase using partedmagic AND sata3 controller in AHCI mode per Corsair forums. I have done Corsair's 1.3.3 firmware update to each drive. I have tried letting windows partition/format each drive during the install. I tried booting from my HDD's, then creating partition tables, allocating sapce, and formatting the SSD's from disk management, then installing win on the drives already setup. And a few other various things in different orders.
My steps for the 1 result that yeilded and actual win7 loading screen after 1st reboot:
2 120gb ssd's on Intel C600 sata3
enter bios - change sata from raid to ahci - exit
boot with partedmagic bootdisk - deleted partitions both drives - system suspend for drive reset - secure erase both drives - shutdown
plugged in 2 160gb hdd to sata2
enter bios - change sata from ahci to raid - exit
enter raid setup utility - create raid0 on 120gb ssd's with 32kb strip - exit
boot win from hdd - create MBR partition table, allocate all avail space, format NTFS (not quick format) - shutdown
unplugged 2 160gb hdd
boot from win7 install disk - install to SSD raid volume - 1st reboot yeilds load screen then 'unknown error', but i guess it was some-what better than windows failed to start due to whatever random file missing or corrupt.
I don't know what else to try - I'm hoping i'm making some obvious mistake I keep overlooking that one of you can point out or something that needs to be done for booting from SSD's I don't know about.
-Sorry for the long post
-Thank you for taking the time
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 7 pro3960x32g gskill
- OS
- Windows 7 pro
- CPU
- 3960x
- Motherboard
- rampage iv extreme
- Memory
- 32g gskill
- Sound Card
- sound blaster recon 3d
