Windows 7 Windows 7 (and vista too) raid drivers woes...

[kinar]

I've got a Dell Precision 470 with an internal striped raid.

It originally came with windows XP64 installed.
I've got it currently setup to dual boot xp64 and Vista business 64 with one more blank partition for "messing around".
This is a test pc that I use to test software on various OS so if I mess it up, only time is lost to reset it up.

When I installed Vista, it wouldn't see my sata raid. When I download the raid drivers from the Dell website (I also tried the drivers on the adaptec site) and put them on a flash drive and click the "load drivers", it told me they weren't compatable. I would try them anyway but thyey wouldnt' ever work. Eventually I got it to work by loading the old XP64 raid drivers off the dell XP64 windows install disc.

Unfortunately, in the Windows 7 install, this isn't working. Any ideas?

 

[kingskin]

are you installing it from a running Vista x64 desktop as opposed to booting it cleanly from the DVD? I'm just thinking if you run it from within Vista then it may collect the right driver from the web when you start the install...

other than that I can't see why it wouldn't work the same as Vista x64. Does the raid driver appear in the list after hitting F6 ok?

 

[kinar]

I am installing from the boot cd (not starting the install from within windows). It is my understanding that starting the install from wthin windows causes your Boot drive to be something other than C:\ and while that isn't necessarily a big deal, I would like to keep all installations thinking it's boot drive is the C drive.

Yes, the bios loads the raid driver fine. It is just the Vista/Win7 install that doesn't see it by default.

 

[kingskin]

right. I couldnt get any W7 build to install from the DVD!

I have lots of drives, all SATA, and I did a clean install from desktop and things are ok. As long as your wannabe C drive is physically connected to the lowest SATA port number, ie Sata 0, rather than having them rearranged within the BIOS ordering everything should be cool. In your case with RAID you want either your two raid drives as 0 and 1, or to unplug all other drives so that the only drive windows see's is your RAID stack and as such it gives it a C letter.

If I were you I would unplug all your drives other than your RAID stack, install Vista x64 with minimal drivers then try the clean install of 7100 from the desktop. I know it's a chore but I think it will work as I have a misplaced trust in MS's technical ability.... once it's up reconnect all your drives and then messa bout for ages switching the boot order in the BIOS inorder to get W7 to boot again, as this always seems to happen.

If you don't want to do that then I would examine the Vista x64 inf file for the raid drivers in notepad and see if you can see anything which looks out of place and wouldnt thus function in W7.

Good luck - it will be worth it in the end!

 

[kinar]

The raid is the only hard drive(s) in the machine.

Anyway, I'm currently installing from the desktop instead of booting. The drive was recognized as you expected.

I'll let ya know how it goes.

edit - Just got an error during the install.

"Windows cannot copy files required for installation. make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070001"

I know the CD is good. I used it last night to install on my Laptop (clean install, only OS on a blank drive) and everything is working fine on that PC.

Checking google for teh error...*crosses fingers*

 

[kingskin]

have you got a flash drive you could copy extract your iso files onto and then run it from there?

I take it your running standard clock speeds etc?

 

[kinar]

Flash drive seems to be working. Got past the Copying files stage....workin on Expanding (48%)....

I'll keep this post updated.

BTW, thanks a ton for the suggestions.

workin like a champ...

Although as I suspected, my root drive in the win7 install is G: instead of C: (Vista = C:, XP64 = D:, empty partition = E:, DVD = F...

Not a big deal for now...

Did you say that there should have been a way around this if I had installed it differently?

 

[kingskin]

not that i know of. I thought the other drives you had were physical ones, not also on the same raid stack. I dont know of an easy way to install it onto C without loosing vista (which is what i would do as it's just wasting space lol)

Glad it worked tho... wish I could be bothered to set up raid 0 again, it did fly along when i used it on a couple of WD Raptor drives - enjoy