Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

[Havok316UK]

I recently purchased my new Asrock Extreme 4 mobo and intel 8230 3.6ghz CPU. During windows 7 installation it asks me to load the drivers for raid. I downloaded the intel c600 raid control drivers for 64bit on the asrock website. It accepted them first time then when windows unpacking files reaches approx 80% I get an error installing driver. I updated the Bios as suggested on a third party site and now I get an error message at the point of loading the driver telling me the driver failed and to ask my vendor for a more up to date driver. Regarding RAID im trying to accomplish my SSD in SATA3_1 port for fast booting and then my 2x Samsung 1TB SATA 3 drives as RAID 0 configuration in SATA3_A1, SATA3_A2. I want to achieve my SSD as windows boot drive and my raided drive for games and content. I also upgraded the bios to 2.10 (latest release not beta) and still no luck. Im running out of options please help!

[wazza300]

Re: Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

with windows 7 you shouldnt need any raid drivers? windows finds/installs drivers for you

[parsec]

Re: Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

There is an issue you are not aware of, and possibly a problem with loading the Intel RAID driver. Boards that have the X79 chipset used in RAID mode must have the RAID driver loaded when you install Windows.

The issue is the SATA III ports you called A1 and A2 (actually SATA3_A0 and SATA3_A1, see your boards manual, page 12), are not provided by the Intel X79 chipset, but are provided by the extra ASMedia 1061 chipset. The ASMedia chipset does not support RAID. The driver for the ASMedia chipset is not the Intel driver, and the ASMedia driver is usually loaded after you install Windows, since it is better to install Windows using the Intel SATA ports.

You will need to put your Samsung HDDs on the Intel SATA II ports in order to use them in RAID 0. While your Samsung HDDs are called SATA III, they will not individually even surpass SATA II speeds. ALL so called SATA III HDDs are like that, sad but true.

The performance of the ASMedia SATA III chipset is much lower than the Intel SATA III ports. I would not use your SSD on the ASMedia chipset, use one of the two Intel SATA III ports. You will not be losing any speed using your HDDs on the Intel SATA II ports, but you will lose performance if you use your SSD on the ASMedia ports.

The X79 chipset uses Intel's RSTe driver, while all other Intel chipsets use the IRST driver. Windows 7 does not have a RAID driver to use with the X79 chipset. You must load the Intel RSTe RAID driver when you install Windows.

What driver did you try to load when you were installing Windows? You must use the "SATA RAID Driver (For system to read from floppy diskette during Windows installation)" that is on your boards download page. While they say "floppy diskette", you actually put the driver on a USB flash drive. Download that file from ASRock, and unzip it. Use the files in the "...64" folder. Copy all the files in that folder to a USB flash drive, and use it during the load driver part of the Windows installation.

If you did use that driver on a USB drive, and it failed, you can also download that driver directly from Intel. Do you have the SATA mode in the BIOS set to RAID? You must do that before you install Windows.

[t3kn33k]

Re: Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

install windows on the ssd as a standalone thus you must disable your raid and hdd's in the bios due to windows conflict . once you have windows install then reboot set your raid drives , you might have to configure the drives in windows disk management , do not install intel irst as i have found there drivers conflict with the windows raid drivers and aren't necessary and are just eye candy , get your raid drivers from the asrock site , the only intel drivers you need are the inf ,video and me

[parsec]

Re: Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

The RAID drivers from the ASRock site are Intel RAID drivers, RSTe to be precise. If you don't install your OS in RAID mode, you must perform a registry change to allow it to work correctly if you change to RAID later. The RAID drivers included with Windows 7 are also sourced from Intel, among others for AMD chipsets, but as I said before, X79 boards are a unique case. The RAID drivers included with Windows won't work with X79 boards.

I've use IRST drivers on five different boards, no problems at all, what conflicts? Now that the IRST version 11 drivers provide TRIM in RAID 0 with Z77 boards (on RSTe soon), the new Intel drivers are far more than eye candy.

[Havok316UK]

Re: Asrock X79 Extreme 4 Windows Pro 64 bit RAID Driver Error During Fresh Install

Thanks guys for the information. I dont know where my reply has gone so il repost it. I found by downloading a newer build of the windows installation dvd sorted the problem for me. I have moved the SATA3 Samsungs to SATA 2 controller and put the SSD into SATA3_1. Computer now boots into windows no problem. Thanks all