Vista & nVRaid - Installation Guide

[huuub]

Ok... Well I installed it on the JMicro. And I will perform a performance test.
According to : http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... p?p=414051
It's performance would suck...
After testing I'm trying the windows Raid method.
Results look promising.

My question to you guy's :
I have this mobo : http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... UAL-ESATA2

In which SATA ports(NVIDIA or JMicro) do I plug my HD's and how do I configure them in the BIOS?

Thanks!!

ps. I know it is a bit off-topic with NVIDIA, however I will post my results here and it can be to use for other frustraited NFORCE3 raid users!!

gr,
J

[happy-camper]

Just dropped in to say thanks for doing the hard yards getting nforce raid systems working in Vista especially Fernando 1!

I know I'm late to the party but I decided to convert my old gaming rig into a HTPC and being a nf4 ultra based system (dfi lanparty ut ultra-d) I have been pulling my hair out over the last two nights trying to get my raid recognised by vista! Within an hour of finding this guide and using the included drivers my raid is up and Vista installed.... YIPPPPEEEE!!!

Now I have a voucher for Windows 7 when it comes out here and wondered if Im wasting my time even thinking about the upgrade after reading your post Fernando. To be honest I'm only considering it because apparently my dual tuner works better in Win7!. So is it even possible to get a nf4 based raid working in Windows 7? Cheers

[Gilly]

I think it is as long as you use the microsoft drivers (that come on the DVD). i dont think nV are supporting the nF4 on W7. I could be wrong though!

[Fernando 1]

@ happy-camper:

Welcome at nForcersHQ Forum and thanks for your report.

So is it even possible to get a nf4 based raid working in Windows 7?

Yes, it is possible.
For details you may look into the start post of this thread.

Have fun!
Fernando

[TwL]

Ok... Well I installed it on the JMicro. And I will perform a performance test.
According to : http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... p?p=414051
It's performance would suck...
After testing I'm trying the windows Raid method.
Results look promising.

My question to you guy's :
I have this mobo : http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... UAL-ESATA2

In which SATA ports(NVIDIA or JMicro) do I plug my HD's and how do I configure them in the BIOS?

Gonna quote first half. I'd dump it on JMicron Controller (If you can I looked your Mobo picture, where there's only 2 NVIDIA SATA ports + JMicron IDE) JMicron is much better than NVIDIA or well, if not exactly faster (which it should be in the end also) it's more stable solution. However I suspect you can't use JMicron in any case, if you can go for it.

[Philomorph]

I have been trying to get my DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra to work with Win7, and had no luck so far. I have one PATA drive with W7 installed on it, and 2 SATA drives in a striped array that works under my XP install.

I followed the guides here carefully and tried multiple drivers, and here is the result:

With the W7 installed drivers, the nForce Serial ATA Controllers show up normally, but W7 sees one disk in my RAID, and says it's not formatted.

Using the 11.1.0.33 custom or WHQL drivers found here, and also with the 11.2.0.23 drivers, the Serial ATA Controller gets an "!" with the error "The Device cannot start (Code 10)". In this case no drives on the RAID show up and the nVidia Storage control panel sees the controller, lists the driver number, and shows no disks.

The nForce RAID controller seems to accept drivers fine.

Any thoughts?

[Philomorph]

No one? I'm really stuck here. It seems that to continue using RAID on W7 I may have to upgrade to a newer chipset. Unfortunately that means an entirely new system, since my board has a socket 939 and uses DDR RAM. It really is an awesome board and the perfect system for my current use. I guess I can keep running XP on it, but I like W7 a lot and would love to get the RAID working. It's difficult to get the right level of performance to record three TV shows at once without striping.

[Fernando 1]

@ Philomorph:
Here is my comment:

1. You posted into the wrong thread, because you want to get Win7 (and not Vista) installed. >Here< is the correct thread for your problem.
2. The nForce SATA drivers v10.x.x.xx and v11.x.x.xx series do not work at all with nForce4 RAD systems. You should try the nForce SATA and RAID drivers v9.98 (WHQL) or v9.99.09 (customized version).
3. The driver update or downgrade of an nForce RAID array will only be successful, if you do it at once with all NVIDIA related "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and "Storage Controllers". Make sure, that the NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controllers, the NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller and the - usually hidden - NVIDIA nForce RAID Devices (=RAIDed hdd's) are using the same nForce IDE driver version, before you are going to reboot.
   Please read carefully the chapter within the start post regarding "How to safely update NVIDIA nForce SataRAID drivers".

Regards
Fernando

[Philomorph]

@ Philomorph:
Here is my comment:

1. You posted into the wrong thread, because you want to get Win7 (and not Vista) installed. >Here< is the correct thread for your problem.
2. The nForce SATA drivers v10.x.x.xx and v11.x.x.xx series do not work at all with nForce4 RAD systems. You should try the nForce SATA and RAID drivers v9.98 (WHQL) or v9.99.09 (customized version).
3. The driver update or downgrade of an nForce RAID array will only be successful, if you do it at once with all NVIDIA related "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and "Storage Controllers". Make sure, that the NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controllers, the NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller and the - usually hidden - NVIDIA nForce RAID Devices (=RAIDed hdd's) are using the same nForce IDE driver version, before you are going to reboot.
   Please read carefully the chapter within the start post regarding "How to safely update NVIDIA nForce SataRAID drivers".

Regards
Fernando

DOH! Thanks, I read a number of threads and must've had a brain fart to post it here. I will give this a try. Thanks again for all your work.

[Calab]

Setting up my DFL LanParty nf4 Ultra-D 64 bit system and needed to get the nVraid working... Needless to say I've made a big mess. Any help is appreciated.

There are three 1 TB drives and a 2TB drive on the nv SATA connectors. Originally, the BIOS settings had RAID enabled only on the three 1TB drives. 2 TB drive had RAID disabled. I think that was one of my orignal problems. Now all four ports are RAID enabled and have arrays created. (A 1.8TB RAID 5 and the 2TB is a 1.8TB JBOD)

My current device mangler looks like this:


You can see that my IDE controllers aren't looking so hot. Also, there are unexpected "Other devices" - PCI memory controller, SMBus, Audio...

One of my issues is that I ran the included registry cleaner:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvstor]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvstor32]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvraid]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvraid64]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvrd32]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvgts]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvgts64]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvata]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvata64]

...so I don't have these keys any more.

Can someone with the same MB export these keys and post them here?

Is there any way to get back to the default Windows drivers?