Possable Solution to CERC SATA Raid 2S STOP error 0x0000007b RAID install WITHOUT having to reloadin

[Networks]

This is information to anyone and all that have to travel down this
road, to help them out and to act a a knowledge-base. My issue was I
had an existing Dell Precision 470 with a CERC SATA 2S RAID option in
the BIOS but this should apply to all motherboards with a integrated
RAID bios. When my system was purchased it only had one hardrive. So
down the road we wanted to install a second SATA raid drive and create
a mirror, WITHOUT formating and reloading the O/S and WITH preserving
the data on the drive. I finally figured it out, to install the RAID
driver without reloading the O/S. When enabling the CERC RAID option in
the motherboard BIOS a 0x0000007b stop error occured everytime during
windows XP boot, turning off the RAID option in the bios remedy the
problem. The 0x0000007b stop error was due to the drivers not being
pre-loaded into the O/S. Since the SATA boot drive is on the SATA
channel to which is on the RAID controller when enabled in the BIOS,
you can't boot and allow windows to detect the RAID controller, so it
was a catch 22 to try and get it loaded on the SATA channel. What I
did was tossed in a 250GB IDE drive, imaged the main SATA boot drive
onto this IDE drive. Then enabled the RAID option in the BIOS and
booted from IDE drive. Thus allowing the system to boot and
detect/install the SATA hostRAID driver. Once the RAID driver was
installed into the O/S that I had imaged on the IDE drive. I shut down
the PC, disabled the RAID option in the BIOS, then I imaged the drive
back to the SATA drive, disconnected the IDE, re-enabled the RAID
option in the BIOS then booted from the SATA which then allowed me to
boot with the SATA RAID option enabled without the 0x0000007b. However
DONT give up at this point, windows will hang on login or after login
you must let it sit for a good 5 mins and boom it will finally load the
desktop, I believe this is due to it detecting new hardware or
initializing something, I was worried, but I waited and all was good.
Woohoo. Once I was sure the RAID driver was installed and working. I
rebooted again, used CTRL-A to get into the RAID BIOS, selected the
option to configure each drive, then used the option to make an array,
during this process depending on the BIOS options it will allow you to
make a RAID 1 set, then it allows you to select BUILD, which will build
off a source drive, then it will ask you what the source drive is that
you would like to build from, onto the blank drive. Thus all doing so
without reloading the O/S and preserving the original partitions/data.
Hope this info helps someone else out.

 

[Guest]

Install a SATA RAID drive....Sorry but for RAID one needs 2 or more drives
to make a RAID configuration,you simply installed a SATA drive along with
a IDE drive....

 

[Networks]

I don't think you've read or understood the issue here. I am completly
aware RAID1 requires 2 drives. Read at the bottom of the message you
will see I built the first SATA drive onto the Second SATA drive to
complete the RAID1 setup after my main issue was resolved.

The ISSUE and workaround to a type of problem was documented here for
others that come across this issue and will invoke some ideas into
solving their similar issues.. Posting it here will allow it to be
indexed in google groups and searchable on the internet as a
knowledgebase.

My issue discussed was
When you have a PC, that has a Motherboard with a SATA RAID option, but
not Enabled in the BIOS or not in use, and you are running your Windows
install from that SATA channel. Should you decide to setup a Mirror
RAID1 with 2 disks later on, if you turn on the RAID option in the BIOS
windows will crash with 0x0000007b stop error, so then how do you
install the RAID drivers into the O/S when you can't boot into windows
to Detect them, because the SATA drive is running from the SATA channel
that depends on the SATA RAID drivers. Typical suggestions I have
received from Dell and other research on the next was to Reload
windows, select F6 to load raid drivers. But I did not want to reload
windows. Lose all my setups and then have to reinstall everything,
Thats B.S. So if you follow the instructions in the orginal message of
the thread you will be able to set a SATA RAID1 mirror without
reloading your O/S.

With regards to the orgnial message.
To skip the process of imaging of drives to the IDE and back to the
SATA, I think another easier way would have been to go out and buy a
simple $30 PCI - SATA interface card that is pretty generic so that
windows already has the drivers. Plug that
in and connect up the SATA boot drive to this PCI card. Enable your
RAID chipset in the BIOS, and Boot through that PCI card, let it detect
and install/configure the drivers into the O/S and then switch your
SATA hardrive back the mainboards SATA channel that has the SATA RAID
feature. You should then be able to boot with the RAID chipset on in
the BIOS off the main SATA drive. You can then enter your RAID BIOS or
RAID Management software in the O/S and setup the RAID1 mirror to your
second SATA drive using the build option to preserve info on the
original disk.