Vista & nVRaid - installation guide and troubleshooting

[Fernando 1]

I finally got vistax86 v5456 installed in RAID0 on my two 150GB SATA raptors. This is on a MSI K8N Diamond (Nforce4, SLI x16) mainboard.
I first installed it on an IDE drive, once it was running I created a new partition on the Nvidia STRIPE for Vista. Then I installed from DVD within Vista, and loaded the RAID drivers during setup. The install went okay, but the system was still booting from the IDE drive. After a lot of trouble I was able to move the boot files/code to the STRIPE. So now Vista boots and runs entirely from the STRIPE.

Thanks for your post!
Meanwhile I got Vista 5456 x86 installed onto my nForce4 Raid0 too - by using exactly the same method I have described within the first post of this thread.
The big problem of nForce4 Raid systems with Vista 5456 is the 64-bit version. Unfortunately none of the yet known methods seem to work with Vista 5456 x64.

[Fernando 1]

@ all users with nForce4 SataRaid system, who want to install Vista Pre-RC1:

As Vista Build 5536 (=Pre-RC1) is now available for everyone, I have updated my guide (first post of this thread) to be suitable for Vista Beta2 and Pre-RC1.
Important remarks:
1. It is still impossible to get Vista installed onto an nForce4 SataRaid system by booting off the DVD.
2. Microsoft did not publish a 64-bit Version of Vista 5536.

[Barrybgb]

Thanks Fernando 1 for the info. I now have Vista pre-RC1 installed on my 2xSata II Raid 0 Array drive. I had installed the RC1 on my other IDE drive computer and loved it. Much faster than beta 2 but I still wanted to load it on my Sata computer
I knew I could not boot from the CD and load it to my raid computer until I found your post. I also loaded the XFi drivers for Vista and they work as well.
I am thinking about upgrading to a 4Disk Raid 0 Array for even more speed.

[talon_262]

I had been banging my head up against the wall the past few days, trying to figure out how to install Pre-RC1 on my nForce 410 machine with a RAID 0 array. I just happened across your post in the NVIDIA forums, tried it your way, and it worked like a charm! Thanks for the hard work and getting the word out!

[Fernando 1]

Last night I have installed Vista Build 5600 (RC1) onto my nForce4 SataRaid system.
Here are my first impressions of Vista RC1:
1. It is still impossible to get Vista installed onto an nForce4 Raid array by booting off the Vista DVD.
2. The current SATARAID drivers of NVIDIA's special Vista chipset driver packages from here and here do not work with nForce4 SataRaid systems.

Conclusion: My guide (first post of this thread) is still actual for Vista Build 5600 (=RC1).

EDIT: I just installed successfully Vista RC1 x64 onto my nForce4 SataRaid system by
a) starting Setup from a running XPx64 partition and
b) loading the WHQL certified drivers (SATARAID+SATA_IDE) of the XPx64 chipset driver package 6.86.
Vista RC1 x64 runs like a charme - all drivers are WHQL certified as it should with Vista x64.

[hseldon]

Like kdombaz I have XP on a two disk RAID array on Nforce 4. I booted up from DVD and installed Vista RC1 onto an IDE disk. After Vista was installed, I then tried to get it to see the RAID array using the new RC1 drivers and got the NVIDIA nForce RAID class controller and two NVIDIA nForce4 Serial ATA RAID Controller items installed but the driver also tried to install an NVIDIA nForce RAID class device which it couldn't find the drivers for in the sataraid folder. So I uninstalled the RAID drivers and went back to the beta2 drivers which worked perfectly and didn't ask to install the RAID class device.

[juampi83]

Fernando:

I followed your GUIDE to intall VISTA RC1, step by step, buy I get Blue Screen on First Boot....

ANY IDEA ??

My system specs:

2x 80GB SATA Western Digital RAID0
ASUS A8N-E (Nforce 4 Ultra)
Athlon64 3200+
1 GB Kingston
6600GT

THANKS A LOT !!

[Fernando 1]

Fernando:
I followed your GUIDE to intall VISTA RC1, step by step, buy I get Blue Screen on First Boot....
ANY IDEA ??

Which nForce drivers (chipset driver version) did you use?
Did you try to boot in safe mode? If yes, did you succeed?
Which error code did you get with your BSOD?

[juampi83]

Fernando:
I followed your GUIDE to intall VISTA RC1, step by step, buy I get Blue Screen on First Boot....
ANY IDEA ??

Which nForce drivers (chipset driver version) did you use?
Did you try to boot in safe mode? If yes, did you succeed?
Which error code did you get with your BSOD?

I used 6.86 nforce4 for Windows XP 32 bit. I can't boot in safe mode. The BSOD doesn't contain an error code, it just starts a process of "Memory Dump" with a percentage and it shut's down my hard disks and restarts. I could install Vista Beta2 without problems, but RC1 has this behavior. I also tried sataraid drivers for Vista Beta 2 and same problem....

The strange thing is that the O.S installs completely, I can even use it before i restart for the first time... And when i use it before restarting everything works perfectly (surf the net, play games, etc)... But after the first restart it won't boot anymore !!

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR TIME AND PATIENCE....

[nunyerb]

i have the an8n 32 sli deluxe and am currently running winxp pro 64 bit (fully updated) on partition C:

i have vista 5600 64bit RC1 and have tried the 6.86 *64 bit drivers from nvidia site (and they dont work for me) even if i run the vista installer from a running winxp pro 64bit OS

i copied the contents of
"C:\NVIDIA\nForceWinXP64\6.86\IDE\WinXP\sata_ide"
and
"C:\NVIDIA\nForceWinXP64\6.86\IDE\WinXP\sataraid"

to the root dir of a blank cd
note: 1 file does overwrite another one in proc (cant rem name) but were exact same size so i said yes

the only way i have got vista 5600 64bit RC1 to install is from the DVD and using the beta 2 drivers for 64bit

please recheck (Fernando 1) your procedure for the 5600 64bit RC1 install using the nvidias 6.86 drivers

maybe you used the 32 bit version?

1 more thing
cant we get the darn RC1 64bit beta drivers to work?
id really like to use those