X399 taichi & storage

Pape wrote: So found the issue. Need to use the uefi windows boot. By default the bios will boot the legacy version of the windows install. Need to do f11 and select the uefi partition of windows.

Pape wrote: That is the thing, boot order was bios than uefi. When the LSI became uefi I realised my storage was now uefi and I needed to make my installation in accordance. I tryed to disable uefi storage under csm but this moved the raidxpert2 outside of the bios and did not notice any configuration promp will look at it more tomorrow as I'm not ready yet to jump in the win10 bandwagon.

Great, glad that was apparently the only issue! Disabling UEFI storage is a mistake, you must have that enabled.

Plus I was wrong about not needing UEFI booting for SATA RAID on X399 systems. Let me show you why I made that mistake, back to the infamous page 11 of the X399 RAID manual:





Notice steps E and F, which are separate steps. Step E is only needed for NMVe RAID. I had included in my mind steps E and F into one step for NVMe RAID. That was the mistake!

AMD had a UEFI shell command line interface for their a few of their newer but pre-Ryzen chipsets, and now that makes sense.

I am glad I mentioned the two entries for booting the Windows installation media, and then you notice that for the LSI RAID utility.

Personally, I have been using FULL UEFI booting for years now, which means the CSM option is set to Disabled. That is the equivalent of setting all the CSM sub-options to UEFI Only. Which is one reason my RAID array works on my Ryzen X370 board, although I did not realize it until now.

With CSM enabled, but the Launch Storage OpROM Policy option to UEFI Only, you will then just use the AMD UEFI Storage Option ROM, and the Windows EFI boot loader when you use the "UEFI:" entry for the installation media. Apparently the Ryzen and X399/TR board's UEFI only have an EFI storage Option ROM in them, no Legacy Option ROM at all, or the EFI Option ROM is all that works with these platform's RAID.

Intel will be completely abandoning the use of the CSM BIOS emulation in their boards starting in 2020, so finally all UEFI booting!    Kiss your old video cards goodbye (more then four - five years old), they won't work in full UEFI booting, no GOP support. Intel's iGPU has supported GOP since Sandy Bridge, since 2011.

You MUST be in UEFI mode or RAIDXpert2 will NOT appear in the UEFI/BIOS as an option. Intel boards are the same way, their IRST utility appearing as an option in the UEFI/BIOS only occurs when using UEFI mode. There is no way you can change that. Legacy BIOS firmware cannot begin to do the things that UEFI firmware can, such as allow you to run programs like the RAID utilities from within the firmware.

My issue was not the csm, my issue was to let the bios select my boot device for installing windows.
See, windowns 10 have 2 boot options:
Legacy mode
UEFI

By default the bios boot the lagcy bios even if all my bios setting are set to UEFI.

To resolve this issue I used the F11 key: select boot device and selected UEFI windows 10.

So now you know trying to install a legacy windows 10 on a UEFI storage result in windows complaining about boot issue.

To your question 2 yes i was able to have windows 10 boot from a x399 raidxpert2 array. I currently have 2 array setup as C and D.

As a extra note my attempt to have win 7 run the raid software failled so AMD is not joking about the raid needing win 10. All the rest of the system do actually run perfectly good on 7 even if not "supported" if you attempt to install win 7 on the taichi x399 make sure you use a dvd and a ps2 keyboard as the beta usb media creator did not work for me.

I am glad that you are running to your satisfaction.  I hope you will please answer some questions for me:

1. One or both arrays created with RAIDXpert2 in the BIOS?
2. Is SATA Mode set to RAID?
3. Is NVMe RAID mode Disabled?
4. What is the setting of CSM?
5. Did you DL the RAID drivers from AMD or ASRock?
6. Did you install W10 from a USB using F11 to boot "UEFI-USB"?
7. Have you tried RAIDXpert2 in W10?

Thanks much and enjoy, John.

Great, thanks much, Pape.  I used Windows based RAIDXpert in older AMD systems but it was to manage RAID5s which are no longer supported.  Enjoy, John.