RAID drivers

ianmozzy wrote: Hi I have a z77 extreme6 motherboard. I want to reinstall the OS in RAID mode, windows 7 64 bit. I understand I need the drivers during the installation to work correctly with the correct  drivers. I will be installing from a USB and put the drivers on there also when needed during the installation process. I found some drivers here. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme6/?cat=Download&os=Win764 There RAID drivers are missing or it is unclear which one it is. I found this manual also but it is of little use in finding the drivers. ftp://europe.asrock.com/Manual/RAID/Z77%20Extreme6/English.pdf Could someone please let me know EXACTLY where I can find the RAID drivers for a Z77 extreme6 motherboard. Thanks

The Intel RAID (IRST) drivers are on the page you linked to above, the 11.6 version. But there are two different driver packages used for somewhat different purposes.

The SATA Floppy Image ver:11.6.0.1030 driver is used during a Windows installation, if you do a Custom installation, and use the Load Driver option. It can also be used for a manual driver installation in Device Manager.

The term "floppy" in the driver name is old terminology (that I wish Intel would stop using), when floppy disks were used instead of USB flash drives. That is all it means, just ignore floppy.

Windows 7 actually has an Intel IRST driver built in, but it is old, and depending upon how old your installation media is, could be different versions. To be safe, you can use the SATA Floppy Image ver:11.6.0.1030 driver during your Windows 7 installation.

Download and extract the driver files, and copy them to a USB flash drive. Put that USB flash drive into a USB 2.0 port on the board's IO panel. The Load Driver option should find them, which you select and are then loaded. Do NOT remove that USB flash drive until the Windows 7 installation is complete.

The Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and utility ver:11.6.0.1030 on the same download page is just what the file name states. It is a combination of the SATA Floppy Image ver:11.6.0.1030 driver, and also has the IRST Windows utility user interface for creating, maintaining, and checking the status of RAID arrays. This package can only be used in Windows. It will install the same driver version as the "Floppy Image" file, and also installs the IRST Windows utility.

It sounds like this is the first time you are using Intel RAID. I would suggest installing the IRST Windows Utility once Windows 7 is installed, even after installing the "Floppy Image" driver during the installation. It is not a problem to do that, I do it all the time. The IRST utility has a great set of documentation about the RAID software.

If you want the latest version of the IRST driver and software, that is compatible with your board, you can download it directly from Intel:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver

You don't need to use the same version of these drivers from an ASRock download page. If you want to do that, choose any Z170 board as the source. Most of those boards will have a slightly older version than the one from Intel above, which makes no difference for your Z77 board.