Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers

[Fernando 1]

After going through the thread, I managed to get it working by making a bootable CD with nlite. Thanks a lot!

You are welcome. Fine, that you succeeded.

However, now I have a 600 gig huge RAID partition... Did I have to partion the HDD b4 setting up a raid array?

No, but it is no problem to partition an nForce RAID array by using a tool like Acronis Disk Director Suite.

Regards

Fernando.

[RyvBoy]

sorry for the english, i'm italian

i've two hd sata WD 1tb and i want to set them in raid mirroring for backup. (i've the OS on another hd)

(winxp already installed)

i set all perfect in bios and with F10...

in windows i've some problem.. at the start it doesn't see an unic hd on "Disk management"..

then i download from www.msfn.org "Fernandos_XP_32bit_NF4-5_Remix_Pack_v5.3" and i install it...

i don't know if it was a right thing

then the reboot it ask me where are the driver of sata Class Device (?) (i dont remember)

now in device manager i don't even see the HD

now i see this but i don't see any HD in "disk management"

Edited February 22, 2009 by RyvBoy

[Fernando 1]

then i download from www.msfn.org "Fernandos_XP_32bit_NF4-5_Remix_Pack_v5.3" and i install it...

i don't know if it was a right thing

then the reboot it ask me where are the driver of sata Class Device (?) (i dont remember)

now in device manager i don't even see the HD

Let the Device Manager show the hidden devices ("View" > "Show hidden devices") and look into the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and "SCSI and RAID Controllers" sections.

What do you see there?

now i see this but i don't see any HD in "disk management"

Not even the hdd with the OS? Please take a picture of your Disk Management.

[RyvBoy]

then i download from www.msfn.org "Fernandos_XP_32bit_NF4-5_Remix_Pack_v5.3" and i install it...

i don't know if it was a right thing

then the reboot it ask me where are the driver of sata Class Device (?) (i dont remember)

now in device manager i don't even see the HD

Let the Device Manager show the hidden devices ("View" > "Show hidden devices") and look into the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and "SCSI and RAID Controllers" sections.

What do you see there?

now i see this but i don't see any HD in "disk management"

Not even the hdd with the OS? Please take a picture of your Disk Management.

yes in disk management i see the hdd with the OS...

now i'm not in front of that pc so i can't tell you other...

tomorrow i'll tell you the rest

[RyvBoy]

[Fernando 1]

@ RyvBoy:

I'm sorry, but I cannot see the devices of the "SCSI and RAID Controllers" section.

[RyvBoy]

[Fernando 1]

@ RyvBoy:

Thanks for the new picture of your Device Manager, which shows, that there is something wrong with one of your RAIDed hard disk drives.

Please check the reason for the yellow mark by doing a right click onto the device.

Furthermore it would be a good idea to find out the driver version (only the last digits are interesting), which are used by devices named "NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller", both "WCD WD10EAVS-00D7B1" and both "NVIDIA nForce4 Intel® Edition Serial ATA Controller" (right click onto them > "Properties" > "Driver" > "Driver version").

[RyvBoy]

the yellow mark has disappeared

Edited February 27, 2009 by RyvBoy

[Fernando 1]

@ RyvBoy:

Thanks for the pictures, which verify, that your nForce IDE devices are using different driver versions (10.3.0.42 and 6.99). This has been the reason for the yellow mark and might cause future system instabilities or even crashes. Maybe you got the nVRAID driver silently by Windows Update.

I recommend to disable the automatic WU option and to manually "downgrade" the driver version of the NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller from within the Device Manager by pointing to the SATARAID subfolder of my "NF4-5 RemixPack". You have to force the installation by choosing the "Have Disk" option.

[RyvBoy]

done...

woaaa maybe now it goes!!!

wait!!

YESSS!!!

now i can see only one in "Disk management"

after a month finally i resolved this ******* problem

really thanks so much!!

really... thanks a lot!!

Edited February 27, 2009 by RyvBoy

[Fernando 1]

done... but

after the reboot it turns again to the wrong driver even if i've automatic windows update unactived

ps. if i make the array (with F10) windows doesn't turn off when i try to reboot or turn off the pc

All this happened, because the "wrong" driver named NVRD32.SYS is still within your system (you will certainly find it within the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS folder). What you need is the driver named NVRAID.SYS.

Here is the procedure I recommend:

1. "Downgrade" the driver of the "NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller" again (as done previously).

2. After having done this, but before you reboot your computer, do the following

1. Let the Device Manager show all devices (hit "View" > "Show hidden devices").
   
2. Check and make sure, that all shown devices named "NVIDIA nForce4 (Intel® Edition) Serial ATA Controller", "NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller" and "WCD WD10EAVS-00D7B1" are using the nForce IDE driver v6.99 (last digits of the shown driver version=699).
   
3. Run the optional REG file you will find within my "NF4-5 Remix Pack".
   

3. Now you can reboot.

Good luck!

Fernando

[RyvBoy]

i edited the last post..

after 2 reboots it works by himselves...

have i to run the reg file even if all seems to work?

Edited February 27, 2009 by RyvBoy

[Fernando 1]

i edited the last post..

after 2 reboots it works by himselves...

I have seen it.

Fine, that you succeeded at least.

have i to run the reg file even if all seems to work?

Don't run the REG file without having verified, that all said devices are using the nForce IDE drivers v6.99.

It may be possible, that now all RAID devices (the NVIDA nForce RAID Controller and the RAIDed hdd's) are using the nForce RAID driver v10.3.0.42. This would not be optimal, but better than before. If you would run the REG file with this driver situation, you wouldn't be able to reboot into Windows XP, because all registry entries regarding the currently used nForce RAID driver named NVRD32.SYS would have been erased by the REG file.

[RyvBoy]

now all devices are using 699