Taichi x399 cannot install windows in RAID mode

MisterJ wrote: daddyo and parsec, as I have said from the very beginning, the documentation is really bad at best and testing seems to be the only way to go forward.  I wish you were correct, parsec, but I am starting to suspect that once SATA mode is set to RAID, then, at lease all NVMe drives must pass through the RAID process and maybe all SATA drives.  daddyo, you are correct, there is no information needed to help sort this.  When you got the message that "Windows cannot be installed to this disk.", did you try the Diskpart procedure I outlined?  When I created a RAID0 last week and then gave up when I could not Restart, I turned off RAID, I had to use Diskpart when I installed W10 because of the same message.  I also think you are correct, daddyo, the UEFI is buggy but I also think we have not tried the right combination. I have received my first response from AMD Support since my detailing my experience with creating a RAID - just a number of questions.  I am hoping they will try my sequence. parsec, did you say what the second place to enable RAID in the BIOS was?  If so, I missed it - please repeat.  Thanks to all here and enjoy, John.

Edited by daddyo - 02 Nov 2017 at 1:33am

So far I have tried 2 different approaches, one suggested by MisterJ, which is to delete all volumes under the Raid management section, and create a new one as "Volume" (rather than "RAIDABLE") that includes my SSD.  I initialized the disc.

Now the windows install begins; I load the 3 different drivers during the drive selection phase, as per the RAID install guide. To make sure I remove older partition metadata, at this point I ran the Windows partition utility, and performed a clean on the drive.  Again, I received the same message during the Windows drive selection process:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

While repeating the procedure to ensure I did it properly I noticed that my drive shows "disabled" Under RAIDXpert2 Configuration Utility->Array Management->View Associated Physical Disks

There is no documentation on this menu item whatsoever, but I assume that "disabled" is not what I would want. So I set it to "enabled", saved and exit. Whenever I go back to this, the status still shows as "Disabled", so I can't figure out why it's not taking my configuration. Could this be the issue??

For good measure, I created another VOLUME in the RAIDXpert2 section, this time with an HDD just to remove my SSD as the problem source.  It's a Samsung 950 PRO, and I was able to install Windows on this motherboard while in SATA mode without any problem, just to reiterate.

My attempt with the HDD resulted in a similar failure.

So I tried Parsec's approach which suggested not creating ANY RAID volume at all. This was done by deleting the listed array, and reverting the drive to "legacy"mode under RAIDXpert2 Configuration Utility->Physical Disk Management

Once done, I attempted the Windows install procedure. Same message/failure as with method 1.

The one thing I can think of, has to do with the "disabled" status of my physical drive in the array.  I don't know why "enabling" does not stick, and tbh I don't know whether that is an issue at all. Perhaps I was incorrect in my array configuration approach, even though I followed the manual instructions? I feel those are aimed at cases where you want to have a RAID array preconfigured to install your bootable OS to. In my case, I just want a single VOLUME.

There, I've been about as detailed as I can be. I'll try a bit more, but I'm suspecting buggy UEFI/RAID implementation.



Edited by daddyo - 01 Nov 2017 at 11:18pm

I see no reason for you to create any RAID array before you install Windows. You should only have the target OS drive in the PC when installing Windows. Otherwise the Windows installer will put the System/Boot partition on another available drive. Or try to in the case of your unformatted RAID array, which will most likely fail.

You still must set the SATA mode to RAID before you install Windows, and since you are using the 1.70 UEFI version, you MUST install the two RAID drivers you have. You can create the RAID arrays using the latest Windows RAIDXpert2 software you will install after Windows is installed.

Since the OS drive is not a RAID array, and should NOT be initialized for RAID in any way, it should be recognized by Windows as simply a SATA drive. That is unless the new AMD RAID has some strange requirement that all drives be initialized for use in a RAID array. I installed Windows 10 on an NVMe SSD with the SATA mode set to RAID on my Ryzen board, but then NVMe is not SATA.

Are you also aware of the requirements for the version of Windows 10 you must use with the new AMD NVMe compatible RAID drivers? That is Windows 10 64bit Build 1703. More information on this page:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/NVMe-RAID-Support-for-the-AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-platform.aspx

The other place to enable RAID should be in the screen below, in the UEFI. I can only use the manual as a reference but this is at worst the general location:

Advanced\AMD CBS\FCH Common Options\SATA Configuration Options.

Well, Kevin A, to each his/her own.  I had a LSI PCIe RAID controller some years ago and it was a disaster, not even warning me that the battery was dead.  If one is interested in pure speed and does not care about losing data (no RAID5), then the onboard RAID should be considered.

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/10/02/now-available-free-nvme-raid-upgrade-for-amd-x399-chipset

The AMD implementation right now is bad and there is little documentation.  I hope it is fixed soon.
Thanks for your comments.  Enjoy, John.

daddyo, that person is me and I am in contact with AMD support.  I suspect you are very correct on the RAID implementation.  I think free-eagle is saying to enable RAID, as you did, then open Array Management and use Delete Array to delete all drives (arrays).  You may have no arrays, but Delete Array will definitely delete all your data from a disk.  Obviously be sure you have a copy of the data.  Then use Create Array to make your array(s).  After this, install W10 on a lone drive (try diskpart, as I suggested).  For me he was saying after installing W10 on my 2 SSD RAID0, then go into W10 and copy my data back to my lone device.  I suspect I would need to do a Clean to be able to use this last SSD outside a RAID.  I do not know if any of this will work and have concluded that we, as users, need to do some of this testing.  I have an open ticket with AMD and will wait for their reply.  I have asked them to try what I did and see if they have the reboot problem.  Will keep all informed via the other thread.  Please let us hear any experiences.  Thanks and enjoy, John.