Windows 7 Install cannot load RAID drivers

[nerdBrain]

I recently built a new computer using the Asus Rampage II Gene motherboard, which uses the ICH10R southbridge and the Intel Matrix Storage Raid controller. Something happened in transport where the setting in the BIOS got reset from RAID mode to IDE mode and now after switching it back to RAID mode the boot process cannot find a bootable device. I checked the bootup priority manager to make sure that was not the issue. I have been trying to use Windows 7 startup repair to fix this problem, but when I attempt to load the x64 RAID drivers for the Intel Matrix Storage controller, Windows install attempts to load them, but then errors out saying "Failed to load driver". I am almost 100% certain these are the correct drivers since I downloaded them from my motherboard's product webpage. I have also tried the most recent drivers directly from Intel. I have tried the other drivers that come with the download for other southbridge's, and I have also tried running Windows 7 x86 install and using the 32-bit drivers, all with the same result. Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong or how to get around this? My computer is essentially unusable in this state and I would really like to avoid having to reinstall Windows.

Thanks

 

[zigzag3143]

I recently built a new computer using the Asus Rampage II Gene motherboard, which uses the ICH10R southbridge and the Intel Matrix Storage Raid controller. Something happened in transport where the setting in the BIOS got reset from RAID mode to IDE mode and now after switching it back to RAID mode the boot process cannot find a bootable device. I checked the bootup priority manager to make sure that was not the issue. I have been trying to use Windows 7 startup repair to fix this problem, but when I attempt to load the x64 RAID drivers for the Intel Matrix Storage controller, Windows install attempts to load them, but then errors out saying "Failed to load driver". I am almost 100% certain these are the correct drivers since I downloaded them from my motherboard's product webpage. I have also tried the most recent drivers directly from Intel. I have tried the other drivers that come with the download for other southbridge's, and I have also tried running Windows 7 x86 install and using the 32-bit drivers, all with the same result. Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong or how to get around this? My computer is essentially unusable in this state and I would really like to avoid having to reinstall Windows.

Thanks

Can you boot from the win 7 dvd to bios, or safe boot (F8)?

Ken

 

[nerdBrain]

I can get into the BIOS and I can boot to the Windows 7 dvd, but the computer does not recognize any other boot device besides the CD-ROM drive. Basically, it cannot find the Windows 7 boot loader since the BIOS screwup. Is there some other BIOS that I am unaware of that you can access through the Windows 7 dvd?

 

[theog]

Take a look at this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/68942-sata-drivers-load-windows-recovery-options.html

 

[nerdBrain]

Yes, this is exactly what I have been trying to do. Right after it gets to the image at stage 6 "Adding drivers" it errors out saying that "Drivers failed to load". The drivers are on a thumb drive. Could that be the problem?

 

[WindowsStar]

Yes, this is exactly what I have been trying to do. Right after it gets to the image at stage 6 "Adding drivers" it errors out saying that "Drivers failed to load". The drivers are on a thumb drive. Could that be the problem?

Have you checked the cables to the SATA controller? Make sure one did not come lose. You did by chance swap the cables around? If you did the machine will not be able to access the RAID because information is written to each drive telling it where it is in the RAID.

 

[theog]

Yes, this is exactly what I have been trying to do. Right after it gets to the image at stage 6 "Adding drivers" it errors out saying that "Drivers failed to load". The drivers are on a thumb drive. Could that be the problem?

Do you unzip the driver download file.

 

[nerdBrain]

The drives are properly connected and both show up as healthy drives in the RAID configuration utility as well as the BIOS. I have not switched the physical connections. Yes the drivers are unzipped. When I click on the inf file I can select the specified driver for the ICH10R southbridge and it begins to install properly, but then fails about half way through and gives me the message "Drivers failed to load". Thanks.

 

[ainuke]

Have you resolved this issue?
I have a similar situation where I'm trying to do a repair installation, but get the same "The installation has failed" in the Add Drivers step.

 

[theog]

Have you resolved this issue?
I have a similar situation where I'm trying to do a repair installation, but get the same "The installation has failed" in the Add Drivers step.

Check to see if your HD show in Diskpart.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/74257-sata-drivers-load-using-shift-f10-open-cmd.html

If no,
Check with a hard drive diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

 

[ainuke]

Thanks for the reply.
Unfortunately I've already moved beyond this, but I'll fill you in on the background in thaw hopes that it'll contribute to the knowledge base.

My MSI (K9NU Neo-V) mobo died, through which I was running my OS & apps on RAID 0 (on board nVidia/Uli M1697 chipset). Most of my important data was on a non-RAID drive, but a couple annoying things (Outlook .pst, and some game saves) were on the RAID array.
The new mobo didn't automatically recognize the array (at this point I had rescued my data using raid recovery program, and was just looking to avoid the hassle of reinstalling OS, games, apps, etc.
I read in another forum/tutorial that I might be able to rebuild the RAID array without disturbing the MFT, as long as I knew the disk order and stripe size (I did).
I did this on the new mobo (that also was running nVidia chipset, but of more recent vintage) and tried a repair install to reset/rebuild the boot loader (if that's the right terminology, even with a "healthy" RAID I still wasn't booting). The interesting thing was that when it was time to load the RAID drivers in the repair, I was able to browse the Computer and see/access all the files in the array.
Installation wasn't acknowledging the presence of an OS, but it was all there. I was hopeful that I could get the install to work, but was continually stymied by "the drivers failed to load". I was able to locate them easily on the USB drive and have the installer list the appropriate ones, but after a minute or two of the computer clicking away and the progress slider shooting across the screen, the error message was the only reward.
So I finally said "F***-it" and proceeded with a clean install.
Bottom line: no resolution, but an unwanted learning experience.

Sorry for the long post. I'm happy to elaborate on anything I've written, but you can consider me resolved.
Too bad I couldn't try your suggestions.

Peace,
Erik

 

[WIJATECH]

This should have worked if attemted first

My PC Win7 64 bit had the same issue. Was working fine, until an power outage. After the power outage the raid also got disabled. Another user proceeded with windows start up repair with raid not enabled in my absence. I noticed the raid was disabled and enabled it in the bios. Tried to load drivers when booting from windows 7 disc and entering start up repair but no luck.

I really searched hi and low and got to here. The problems seemed similar.

Then I remembered something...Windows probably tried to correct a registry entry noticing that the system wasn't set up for raid and thus disabled raid in registry.

Here is how to fix

Boot with Disc into recovery as usual.
Ignore loading drivers and select first option.
open up command prompt and type regedit.exe
Navigate to [FONT=&quot]HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV[/FONT]In the right-hand column, you should see a value named [FONT=&quot]Start[/FONT]. Double-click this entry and change the data from [FONT=&quot]0[/FONT] to [FONT=&quot]1[/FONT]

Restart machine normally.

VERY important: I could get into widows but since I have attempted 4 hours of back ally fixes, boot repairs, check disks (chkdsk) & a bunch of other stupid stuff I had a corrupt user profile. This was probably caused by Chkdsk and Diskpart treating the raid array as a normal drive and thus corrupted some data.
So although you will probably read this after you have done everything I have, I suggest trying the above method of registry fix first in this situation.

Hope it helps someone out there. I just finished repairing all the other newly created issues and my total time count without having to reload is about 11 hours. Where is the good old WINXP repair option when we need it so badly??? I wish MS would understand that I had to waste half a day for something I could have sorted in the XP days in 2 hours.

 

[barryn]

Thought I'd sign up and see if there would be any more thoughts on this. This thread is the closest thing on the net I could find to my situation.

BOOTMGR is missing
Win 7 Install Disk boots but can't install ICH10R drivers to do repair
Have tried the registry change
Post shows all drives are fine and ICH10 post shows healthy raid 0 setup
Reseating the cables never helped. It did reset my BIOS which I have recorrected the settings again
It was dusty before this occurrence and I have blown it out now
My last backup was in March I've never actually tried a restore (Acronis TI) to see if it would even work on RAID 0
Seems to me I have to get my RAID 0 back to do any commands however I not familiar with the win 7 100mg partition so maybe that's the problem
?

 

[WindowsStar]

@barryn

Welcome to the forum.

Most of this thread is 2 years old. I don't think may people are following it, in fact I may be the only one and that may be because I forgot to unsubscribe when it got old Your best bet is to start a new thread and refer to this one, that will get you the help you need.

WindowsStar

 

[barryn]

Thanks WindowsStar