NVRAID install failure

[Jon Davis]

NForce4 (MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum) 3 WD SATA hard drives, 2 are RAIDed in a
striping array. So first (to get the story out of the way) I tried booting
Vista x64 RC1 setup via DVD and using the nVidia nForce4 drivers for Vista
RC1 on CD-RW to load the RAID drivers during boot/setup but the drivers
would not load. Kept trying this for a couple days, gave up.

Then I found another hard drive lying around, formatted it, installed
Windows XP Pro x64 Ed., and then installed the appropriate XP x64 drivers
from nVidia, and then ran the Vista x64 RC1 DVD. The RAID drive could now be
seen (as it was visible now in XP), but it still said it could not be
installed without the appropriate drivers. I then tried the nVidia nForce4
drivers for Vista RC1 and now it was INSTALLING!!

The setup files copied completely over and the computer rebooted. Then it
said, "Could not find the selected partition for the installation target."
It proceeded to rollback and cancel setup without so much as a "Retry" or
"Reload driver".

Now what?

I am pondering the idea of restarting with installing XP x64 on the RAID
array itself rather than a spare HD w/ the RAID drivers. But I don't have a
working floppy drive, and XP requires the floppy. Considering a USB floppy,
but don't know if my mb supports it. Aarrgh...

- Jon

 

[Jon Davis]

This thread was mistitled... NVRAID is the software RAID solution, I think,
rather than the hardware RAID. I am using hardware RAID, which comes with my
nVidia nForce4 chipset.

Jon

 

[Brian P Fielding]

Firstly: I believe the nForce RC1 drivers on the nVidia site are not nForce4
drivers - they are for 570/590 controllers.

I would install Windows XP x64 using nForce 6.86 (or more recent) x64
drivers. These drivers should also be copied to a USB stick, CD or a
non-raid hard drive.

You should be able to install Vista x64 by booting from the DVD. After
completing the preliminaries you get to the stage when Vista queries which
partition to load Vista - now click on "Load Driver" and using Browse locate
the nForce4 drivers (these are in the sataraid folder in driver or WinXP
folder in the IDE folder). You should then see all the partitions available.
You should select a suitable, unused partition and then follow the
instructions to complete the install.

Now, I and a number of others have not been successful with this; no
partititions are made visible after loading the drivers. But a workaround
is as follows:

Install Windows XP x64 using nForce 6.86 x64 drivers. These drivers should
also be copied to a USB stick, CD or on the non-raid hard drive. In Win XP
x64, load the Vista X64 DVD and click install.

you should then be able to install Vista x64 on a different partition to
that used by WinXP x64. At the stage when Vista queries which partition to
load Vista click on "Load Driver" and using Browse locate the nForce4
drivers (these are in the sataraid folder in driver or WinXP folder in the
IDE folder). . You should then see all the partitions available. You should
select a suitable, unused partition and then follow the instructions to
complete the install.

Hope this helps
Brian

 

[Robert R. Johnson Jr]

Jon I can tell you that this hasn't worked for me even using the X86 raid
drivers and x86 Vista version and I have the same exact motherboard. I have
a total of 4 western digital SATA drives and two drives form a sata raid 0
and the other two a sata raid 0 also which I use for backup purposes. No
matter what I tried I could not get the Nforce drivers from the NVIDIA site
nor any older XP sataraid drivers to be recognized by the Vista setup
routine. The load drivers option failed miserably. This is an option that
Microsoft needs to make sure is fixed.

 

[Jon Davis]

Thank you. But after doing this exactly as you describe, as well as trying
again with the setup DVD but with the XP drivers, I get the exact same
results as the original post using the RC1 drivers. Setup sees the partition
fine when Setup is running in XP, but upon the first reboot Setup says
"Cannot find the partition selected for installation," and rolls back.

I just realized that you couldn't have read that I already indicated this
because you said that setup's configuration screen would "see" the RAID
array when loading the XP drivers, but I already said that the RC1 drivers
worked fine for getting Setup to see the RAID drive, but only failed to load
upon first reboot.

This is definitely broken on Microsoft's side. The drivers work fine (sorta,
although not at all when booting from the DVD), but loading the drivers in
the setup bootloader is NOT working fine.

Actually this may be a conflict of the drivers and Vista's bootloader or
kernel. XP sees the RAID fine, and Vista setup sees the RAID fine when going
through XP already running during initial Setup. But neither the DVD nor the
first reboot bootloader can see the RAID array using the same drivers. I
think something is going very weird on this side of Vista that seems to work
in Microsoft's and nVidia's test labs and for some other people but not for
me and some others.

My config: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (not SLI), Athlon 64 3000+. Three SATA
drives (Western Digital), one IDE drive. The two SATA drives are RAIDed, one
SATA drive has XP x86, the IDE drive has XP x64 (only for preloading Vista
setup). I do not know which SATA ports my three SATA drives are connected
to. I only learned recently that this might matter, but I'm fearful of
changing it lest I accidentally erase my data already on the RAID array.

Jon

 

[Brian P Fielding]

Jon

I have re-read your original posting - I should read more carefully. The
difference between your situation and mine is that WinXP x64 is installed on
the Raid 0. The initial setup of Vista may use the nForce4 Raid drivers
from XP and so be in position to enable the partition selection to complete
correctly.

Installs from the DVD worked ok at Beta2 - but I cannot now install any
beta2 Vista by booting from DVD - something, I believe, has been changed on
the RAID setup during my attempts to install RC1 Vista. (I'm not going to
setup my Raid again to prove it)

It may be that you have to bite the bullet and get a floppy drive (I had no
success with a USB floppy drive on my board). But it obviously does not
make sense to have to install the appropriate WinXP before you install
Vista.

(I have to suffer with only half a video card being used - Vista is yet to
support SLI)

Brian

Using a Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI with GV-3D1 video card (dual GeForce 6600 GT).

 

[Jon Davis]

Unplugged the non-RAID drives. Went out and bought a floppy drive for
installing XP to the RAID drive. The RAID drive has two partitions, the
primary partition is the target partition for Vista, the extended partition
is for my data and is the temporary target partition for XP. I installed XP,
using the floppy drive as needed for the RAID drivers. Once XP finished
setup I installed the full nForce driver suite and a few other drivers. Then
I ran Vista setup. Setup could see the Primary partition so I went ahead and
installed to it.

Now on reboot I get BSOD with error code 0x0000007b. Basically the same
thing (bad driver for hard drive volume).

Tried the Vista install using both XP and Vista drivers using this method,
same result.

Jon

 

[Brian P Fielding]

You're not having a good time.

I get a 7b error if I attempt to use the RC1 nForce4 drivers. I did
reformat the target partition before attempting to re-install Vista.

Sorry, can't see anything else that may help

Brian.

 

[Jon Davis]

Was XP as your temporary preinstall put on your primary RAID partition or
your extended RAID partition? I thought perhaps my putting XP on the
extended RAID partition might affect things, even though the bootloader for
XP is on the primary partition. But what do I know anymore?

Jon

 

[Brian P Fielding]

Probably more than you would admit !? Vista RC1 in terms of nVidia has gone
well off track, it is problematic to a large number of users, which
certainly includes me.

I don't consider my WinXP (D: drive) as a temporary preinstall - I use it,
rightly or wrongly in terms of beta testing, as my primary PC - I use it
regularly/daily/ hourly - whatever. It is basically an user account which
is part of a domain. The overall setup I have is a SBS based domain with 2
workstations + 2 laptops and is used partly for my use (+ the "Beloved"
wife's) and more generally as a test site for our small business (SBS server
+ workstations + laptops)

My PC is set up with a Raid 0 with 2 150 GB Maxtor drives - a total size of
305 GB. It also has a 150 GB drive on the Silicon Image Controller which I
use for the pagefile, work files, backup etc

The raid has a small primary partition C: (5 MB) and an extended partition
with 4 logical drives each of 75 MB (drives D: to G

C: is the system drive, holds bootloader etc (no OS is installed here) , D:
Win XP Pro, E: Vista x86, F: Vista x64, G: Win XP Pro x64 (G: is truly
temporary as I had to be set it up in order to install Vista x64)

Hope this helps

Brian

 

[Jon Davis]

The raid has a small primary partition C: (5 MB) and an extended partition

with 4 logical drives each of 75 MB (drives D: to G

I assume by "MB" you mean "GB".

Given that you put Vista x64 on your F: partition, I'm at a loss as to what
my next step should be. I should point out that I threw out a lot of
recorded television shows, not to mention hours backing things up, just to
offload my RAID array so that I could switch it back from being a Dynamic
Disk to being a Basic Disk, all so that I could install an OS (Vista) on the
RAID array. Not to repeat going out to Comp USA to buy a floppy drive for XP
to do a temp preinstall.

Could it be a mobo conflict?

Jon

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem, ten or twenty attempts at an x64 RC1 installation on
an A8N32-SLI motherboard on a three drive stripe using both clean and upgrade
paths without success and using these newsgroups. It wasn't until a Yahoo
search revealed
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/vis...l?start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
which solved my problem. I was able to install from a DVD boot using the
linked Vista Beta2 nforce drivers but not from the other methods listed. I
hope this helps as well for you guys.

 

[Jon Davis]

I had the same problem, ten or twenty attempts at an x64 RC1 installation
on
an A8N32-SLI motherboard on a three drive stripe using both clean and
upgrade
paths without success and using these newsgroups. It wasn't until a Yahoo
search revealed
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/vis...l?start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
which solved my problem. I was able to install from a DVD boot using the
linked Vista Beta2 nforce drivers but not from the other methods listed.
I
hope this helps as well for you guys.

Thanks Brad. I've seen that post in every Google search I've tried. The one
thing that makes me skeptical, which I admit I have not yet tried, is this
whole notion of using Beta 2 drivers. Notice that the article was written
long, long ago (May 25, 2006). Back then, the Beta 2 drivers were the latest
and greatest. Why then would the RC1 drivers, or the latest XP x64 drivers,
not be more likely to work on RC1?

Regardless, he does say to use the XP x64 drivers. "I suggest to install
Vista x64 with the actual WHQL-certified 64-bit XP drivers, which are
working with Vista too. You will find the best suitable SataRaid drivers for
your system, when you look here for the nForce driver package, which is
fully compatible with your nForce chipset and designed for Windows XP x64.
Download and unzip the package. Then copy the whole content (that means all
files) of the SATARAID and the whole content (all files) of the SATA_IDE
subfolder all together onto an empty floppy disk or USB stick. All files
have to be in the root of the disk/stick device."

Those are the same drivers I have been trying to use. I still get a
0x0000007b BSOD on first Vista Setup reboot.

Jon

 

[Guest]

Yes, I saw the time stamp and my only conclusion was that the post had been
updated (or it was intentionally deceptive which we know happens). This was
the section that I used:

Alternatively you can try to take the SATARAID subfolder of the 64-bit Vista
Beta2 chipset diver package you find here. These drivers didn't work for me
and my chipset, but users with another nForce chipset reported, that they
succeeded only with them.

Where I deviated from his procedure was that I didn't install from Windows
XP but onto a clean array directly from the DVD. Once Vista boots, do not
upgrade to Nvidia's latest drivers or it craps out again.

 

[Jon Davis]

Well, I tried the Beta 2 drivers. That actually helped, it got me halfway: I
was able to see my lone SATA drive after booting from the DVD and then
loading the Beta 2 SATA RAID controller. None of the other drivers did that
much. But I was still not able to see my SATA RAID array, I could only see
the lone SATA drive. I didn't realize this until after I was already up and
running on the SATA drive which I accidentally selected thinking it was my
RAID array due to similar volume naming convention. In doing so I replaced
my regular Windows environment.

*sigh* .. Don't ask me how I signed up for this QA testing but nVidia and
Microsoft I hope (but doubt) you're watching.

Jon

 

[Guest]

It is better to be lucky than smart and I guess I was lucky. I assume your
array is on the Nvidia SATA ports and not on the Silicon Image ports (if your
board has both). I still can't see my Silicon Image SATA drives but then I
couldn't from prior Vista Beta's. Also, I read some people were having
problems if a prior Windows environment existed so I cleaned my array,
deleted it, rebuilt it using striping and optimal blocks, cleaned it again
(just because I don't know better), all using the Mediashield hardware
utility at boot (obviously). All seems to be well except for a few unknown
device issues which have been persistent across the beta's. It would be
interesting to know if this thread has helped anyone else or if I have just
had a fortunate combination of hardware on my nforce4 board.

 

[Brian P Fielding]

Yes to GB - I remember the days when 20 MB was a large disc (physically as
well).

I don't think it's motherboard issue - too many people are having similar
problems with nVidia nForce4 boards from different manufacturers. The
problem only seems to have started after the RC1 release. I had no problem
installing the Beta2 release either by booting from the DVD or through WinXP
and using Vista Drivers - I "only" had to install WinXP x64 to get Vista RC1
x64 to install on XP drivers. Now I cannot re-install Beta2 from a DVD
boot. I suspect by rebuilding the RAID afresh I would be able to do so.

I now believe the ball is well and truly in MS / nVidia's court and will not
be doing further installs until a new release or new drivers are available.

Brian

 

[Jon Davis]

Yes to GB - I remember the days when 20 MB was a large disc (physically
as well).

I don't think it's motherboard issue - too many people are having similar
problems with nVidia nForce4 boards from different manufacturers. The
problem only seems to have started after the RC1 release. I had no
problem installing the Beta2 release either by booting from the DVD or
through WinXP and using Vista Drivers - I "only" had to install WinXP x64
to get Vista RC1 x64 to install on XP drivers. Now I cannot re-install
Beta2 from a DVD boot. I suspect by rebuilding the RAID afresh I would be
able to do so.

I tried the versions before Beta 2, I tried Beta 2, and I tried the CTPs
following Beta 2. I have never been able to get this to work.

Jon

 

[Jon Davis]

Well, after at least twenty or so failed or invalid installs of Windows
Vista, I finally got Windows Vista x64 installed straight to my RAID array
(nForce4). I had tried every combination ... boot with DVD, insert CD-ROM or
USB drive or floppy with RC1 drivers or Beta 2 drivers or XP x64 drivers ...
install XP x64 on secondary hard drive or extended partition, boot from it,
then install Vista on the primary partition, .. etc.

The last one that I didn't try, and after this it was going to be all over
for me, was to get XP x64 installed straight to the Primary Partition of the
RAID array, with all other hard drives physically disconnected, then install
Vista over the top of that from within XP. I had tried doing as much before
but with XP running from the Extended Partition (but the boot loaders on
the primary partition). This didn't work, this is where I got the
0x?0000007B error. But this had me suspicious; what is XP x64 full install
w/ its RAID drivers was on the *same* partition as the boot loader?

So I tried it tonight as a final, last ditch effort before deleting all
burns and extracts of the Vista RC1 ISO, to install XP x64 on the Primary
Partition of my RAID array with all other drives disconnected. I also
decided to permanently install my new floppy drive that I bought just for
this but hadn't really installed it (left it hanging out of the case the one
or two prior times I installed XP on the RAID array). With XP booted and
running, I ran the Vista setup, but then I got an error saying that the
source files were corrupt. I extracted the ISO to the hard drive and tried
again, it still didn't work. I then rebooted (to a different build of XP on
one of the disconnected drives since this temp XP build didn't have the
network drivers installed), re-downloaded the ISO, then extracted the ISO to
the hard drive, then rebooted back to the Primary partition on the RAID
array, then tried Vista setup again from the new extract of the ISO, and it
worked. (Phew!! .. that was a mouthful) After some Googling I concluded that
apparently the initial ISO release of Vista was a corrupted release or
something.

Anyway, Vista went through all the setup and reboot processes and I am
actually writing this within Vista on my primary partition of my RAID array.
Oh, by the way, I did NOT use ANY Vista drivers--neither nVidia's Vista Beta
2 drivers nor their Vista RC1 drivers. I only used nVidia's XP x64 drivers
that I put on the floppy drive to install XP x64 onto my RAID array.

Yay me. Now I go to sleep.

Jon

 

[Brian P Fielding]

Persistence pays

Relax a little, and play with Vista

Too late now, it's midnight here, will read your posting tomorrow

Brian