Vista - How to install Vista 64 with RAID 5

I have the nVidia 680i motherboard with on board raid. I also have
the nVidia raid driver set from nVidia. Does anyone know how to
install these things. XP lets you pause long enough to install third
party drivers but Vista doesn't seem to. Am I missing something
simple? thanks

<bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
news:ifquc3d52gqapq0p7omf1v63lcgp534c22@4ax.com...
>I have the nVidia 680i motherboard with on board raid. I also have
> the nVidia raid driver set from nVidia. Does anyone know how to
> install these things. XP lets you pause long enough to install third
> party drivers but Vista doesn't seem to. Am I missing something
> simple? thanks


On the page where you choose what drive to install to (and in your case you
see no drives) there is an Advanced button. In there you can specify
additional drivers. Use that to load the driver for your RAID controller
and then any volumes you created in the RAID BIOS would be visible as
installable drives.

Make sure you first create a RAID volume using your RAID controllers BIOS
(using a key combo you hit during POST).

Thanks Seth.

I need a more basic procedure. For instance should the 3 harddrives
required for raid5 be formatted or left as "just out of the box".
Then how do I set up the main BIOS. And then go from there. In other
words don't assume that I know anything.

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:45:15 -0400, "Seth"
<seth_lermanNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote:

><bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
>news:ifquc3d52gqapq0p7omf1v63lcgp534c22@4ax.com...
>>I have the nVidia 680i motherboard with on board raid. I also have
>> the nVidia raid driver set from nVidia. Does anyone know how to
>> install these things. XP lets you pause long enough to install third
>> party drivers but Vista doesn't seem to. Am I missing something
>> simple? thanks
>
>
>On the page where you choose what drive to install to (and in your case you
>see no drives) there is an Advanced button. In there you can specify
>additional drivers. Use that to load the driver for your RAID controller
>and then any volumes you created in the RAID BIOS would be visible as
>installable drives.
>
>Make sure you first create a RAID volume using your RAID controllers BIOS
>(using a key combo you hit during POST).

Hi,

You don't need to do anything to the drives ahead of time, it (partitioning
and formatting) can be done as part of setup after installing the
appropriate driver. However, you do need to set up the proper RAID in the
drive controller BIOS. Consult your motherboard documentation for the proper
method to do this.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

<bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
news:dqvuc3lnlaa7bcdpuvaaemecbgiip964sj@4ax.com...
> Thanks Seth.
>
> I need a more basic procedure. For instance should the 3 harddrives
> required for raid5 be formatted or left as "just out of the box".
> Then how do I set up the main BIOS. And then go from there. In other
> words don't assume that I know anything.
>
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:45:15 -0400, "Seth"
> <seth_lermanNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>><bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
>>news:ifquc3d52gqapq0p7omf1v63lcgp534c22@4ax.com...
>>>I have the nVidia 680i motherboard with on board raid. I also have
>>> the nVidia raid driver set from nVidia. Does anyone know how to
>>> install these things. XP lets you pause long enough to install third
>>> party drivers but Vista doesn't seem to. Am I missing something
>>> simple? thanks
>>
>>
>>On the page where you choose what drive to install to (and in your case
>>you
>>see no drives) there is an Advanced button. In there you can specify
>>additional drivers. Use that to load the driver for your RAID controller
>>and then any volumes you created in the RAID BIOS would be visible as
>>installable drives.
>>
>>Make sure you first create a RAID volume using your RAID controllers BIOS
>>(using a key combo you hit during POST).

<bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
news:dqvuc3lnlaa7bcdpuvaaemecbgiip964sj@4ax.com...
>
> I need a more basic procedure. For instance should the 3 harddrives
> required for raid5 be formatted or left as "just out of the box".
> Then how do I set up the main BIOS. And then go from there. In other
> words don't assume that I know anything.


Mo formatting or partitioning.

When you first power on your machine, you should see a message for pressing
some control key for the RAID BIOS. You may have to actually enabled it in
the motherboards regular BIOS first.

I can't be any more detailed than that as many systems are different. The
sequence on my machine may be entirely different than yours meaning a
step-by-step could lead you completely wrong. Consult your manual or post
the make and model of your mobo here to see if anyone knows it specifically.

Once the RAID volume has been created (in the RAID BIOS), and you've loaded
the drivers via the Advanced menu in Vista partitioning, the RAID volume
will show as a single physical drive.

My motherboard is the nVidia 680i with on board raid.
I set up the main bios as raid and select 3 sata harddrives required
for raid5.
I then start installing Vista64.
The raid drivers are on a floppy but there is no opportunity to load
them in.
I have never been able to see the raid bios. I think if I could see
the raid bios then everything would go well.

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:45:03 -0400, "Seth"
<seth_lermanNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote:

><bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
>news:dqvuc3lnlaa7bcdpuvaaemecbgiip964sj@4ax.com...
>>
>> I need a more basic procedure. For instance should the 3 harddrives
>> required for raid5 be formatted or left as "just out of the box".
>> Then how do I set up the main BIOS. And then go from there. In other
>> words don't assume that I know anything.
>
>
>Mo formatting or partitioning.
>
>When you first power on your machine, you should see a message for pressing
>some control key for the RAID BIOS. You may have to actually enabled it in
>the motherboards regular BIOS first.
>
>I can't be any more detailed than that as many systems are different. The
>sequence on my machine may be entirely different than yours meaning a
>step-by-step could lead you completely wrong. Consult your manual or post
>the make and model of your mobo here to see if anyone knows it specifically.
>
>Once the RAID volume has been created (in the RAID BIOS), and you've loaded
>the drivers via the Advanced menu in Vista partitioning, the RAID volume
>will show as a single physical drive.

If you have the BIOS set properly for RAID, you should see a screen telling
you to hit some function key to enter the RAID BIOS.
The place to add the drivers is on the page where you select the location to
install

<bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
news:af6vc3hdvr87k1o3r51kc8770t5kbtbp7t@4ax.com...
> My motherboard is the nVidia 680i with on board raid.
> I set up the main bios as raid and select 3 sata harddrives required
> for raid5.
> I then start installing Vista64.
> The raid drivers are on a floppy but there is no opportunity to load
> them in.
> I have never been able to see the raid bios. I think if I could see
> the raid bios then everything would go well.
>
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:45:03 -0400, "Seth"
> <seth_lermanNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>><bubbles@spring.air> wrote in message
>>news:dqvuc3lnlaa7bcdpuvaaemecbgiip964sj@4ax.com...
>>>
>>> I need a more basic procedure. For instance should the 3 harddrives
>>> required for raid5 be formatted or left as "just out of the box".
>>> Then how do I set up the main BIOS. And then go from there. In other
>>> words don't assume that I know anything.
>>
>>
>>Mo formatting or partitioning.
>>
>>When you first power on your machine, you should see a message for
>>pressing
>>some control key for the RAID BIOS. You may have to actually enabled it
>>in
>>the motherboards regular BIOS first.
>>
>>I can't be any more detailed than that as many systems are different. The
>>sequence on my machine may be entirely different than yours meaning a
>>step-by-step could lead you completely wrong. Consult your manual or post
>>the make and model of your mobo here to see if anyone knows it
>>specifically.
>>
>>Once the RAID volume has been created (in the RAID BIOS), and you've
>>loaded
>>the drivers via the Advanced menu in Vista partitioning, the RAID volume
>>will show as a single physical drive.

<bubbles@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:af6vc3hdvr87k1o3r51kc8770t5kbtbp7t@xxxxxxYes there is, you're just not following the directions. I posted earlier in
this thread...

[
Once the RAID volume has been created (in the RAID BIOS), and you've loaded
the drivers via the Advanced menu in Vista partitioning, the RAID volume
will show as a single physical drive.
]

During Vista setup, when you got to the drive selection screen it has a
button for "Load Drivers". Did you hit the Advanced button? If you did, you
would see where it also allows you to "Load Driver".

But no drive will show up if you haven't created the RAID volume.
Then you need to look harder, especially at the owners manual for the
motherboard. You need to enable the RAID BIOS so that you can hit the key
combo to get into it during POST to create the RAID volume.

But as above, that is only half the equation as you will probably need to
install the drivers from floppy, CD or USB stick during Vista setup.

Seth,

I appreciate your following this thread and I have some good news. I
was able to install the raid drivers from a floppy as per your
instructions but I have yet to see the "Raid Bios". After installing
the drivers Vista then installed without incident. What I'm looking
for now is a way to clean up the sata drives in preparation for a
fresh attempt. Incidentally the manual was written for winxp.

On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:03:43 -0400, "Seth"
<seth_lermanNOSPAM@xxxxxx> wrote:

<bubbles@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6df9d3trk5f9egpu665r48j7er53p6h4tv@xxxxxxIf you never configured the RAID level via the BIOS, how do you know you are
actually running in RAID?

And what OS the computer manual was written in is meaningless when talking
about making changes in the BIOS (both regular and RAID) as all that takes
place with no OS installed at all. The only part that is OS specific is the
installation of the drivers which you now know how to do.