Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers

[Fernando 1]

I'm having problems installing Windows XP Pro x64 on my system. I have two SATA drives set to dual boot, one has Ubuntu on it, the other did have Windows XP Pro 32bit on it but I wiped it and now want to put Windows XP Pro x64 on.

Which of your hdd's is the boot drive with the MBR?

Have you changed the HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY within the BIOS?

I've followed the instructions on here but it still doesn't want to work. It just hangs at "Setup is starting windows". I've tried installing the SATA_IDE drivers by floppy, the SATARAID drivers by floppy and both together by floppy to no avail, I've tried using nlite to put them in, no luck there either.

Since you use neither RAID nor native AHCI mode, you don't need any nForce IDE drivers to get Windows XP x64 installed.

I've got the latest drivers for my chipset (nforce 430/geforce 6100). I do know that if I place my Windows XP 32bit (SP3) disc in, it doesn't hang, its only the 64bit version that hangs.

1. The 64bit version of Windows XP is very sensitive regarding overclocking, especially during the Setup procedure. Do a memtest and run your computer at standard BIOS settings (no OC).

2. Maybe one of your devices is not compatible with XP x64. Unplug all unneeded devices before you start with the Xp x64 installation.

[Severian]

Greetings Fernando. This might be slightly off-topic, but you seem to have an innate understanding of all this and I was wondering if you could give me any insight into my problem.

System:

Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 (w/ nForce 4 Ultra)

(2) SATA drives in RAID 0 configuration (Operating System)

(2) PATA drives in RAID 1 configuration (Storage)

Windows XP

I loaded XP on the striped SATA array with the traditional F6 method and that array works completely fine.

My problem is XP will not recognize the PATA drives as a mirrored array. They are recognized in the RAID BIOS as mirrored, but not in Windows. In Windows they show as two separate drives.

I have the most recent BIOS (Version F8) for the board which includes the 4.84 nVidia RAID IDE ROM BIOS and I'm using the standard 6.86 nForce drivers from nVidia's site. The motherboard has a Sil3114 raid controller as well, but that is strictly SATA, not PATA, so I can't utilize that.

I've tried using an XP Pro disk w/ SP2 and an XP Home disk w/ SP1. With each of these installs I upgraded to every SP including SP3 with the same problem on each level.

I've tested using the two PATA drives as Master/Slave on one channel and also as Master/Master on separate channels - same problem.

I've also tried disconnecting the SATA drives completely and loading XP on the PATA mirrored array. With this method I get the problems that this thread is all about. The install goes fine but on the final boot I get the BSOD. When I hook the working SATA drives back up and boot into Windows I see the two PATA drives as separate drives again with the OS files on each of them.

I would try your method if I only had the PATA drives to worry about, but if I understand correctly, your guide is intended to get Windows up and running. Since I already have Windows working I'm not sure it would help in my case, but I'm obviously missing something here so...

Any suggestions you could provide would be a great help.

Thank You,

Sev

[Fernando 1]

@ Severian:

You will only be able to see your P-ATA RAID array within Windows, if you replace the currently installed "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" by the "NVIDIA nForce4 Parallel ATA Controller".

Do the following:

1. Open the Device Manager and look into the section "SCSI and RAID Controllers". There should be 2 devices named "NVIDIA nForce RAID Class Controller". If not, please give a feedback.

2. Now open the section "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". There you will find a "NVIDIA nForce4 Serial ATA Controller" (not interesting in this case), but probably 2 or more devices named "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Try to find out, which of them is attached to your P-ATA RAID hdd's (right click onto the ATA Channels > "Properties" > "Advanced Settings").

3. Right click onto the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller", which is connected with your P-ATA RAID hdd's and choose the option "Update driver software" > "Browse my computer..." > "Let me pick..." > "Have disk..."

4. Point into the LEGACY folder of your nForce chipset driver package 6.86. Now you should see the "NVIDIA nForce4 Parallel ATA Controller" as compatible device.

5. Choose the "NVIDIA nForce Parallel ATA Controller" and let the associated driver be installed.

After a reboot you hopefully will see both RAID arrays (SataRaid and PataRaid) and their partitions within Windows Explorer.

Good luck!

Fernando

[chaosbuzz]

New user to the boards and was looking for some help with my nlite installation. I have an Acer Aspire E360 socket 939 foxconn motherboard with an nforce4 410/6100. I want to have AHCI so I can hot swap my SATA external hard drives and I do not have a floppy drive for doing the f6 method. Which drivers should I put in my nlite installation so I have the correct SATA drivers that will allow me to do this function? I downloaded the most recent nforce driver pack from nvidia but I have 2 folders in it: MCP51 and MCP61, which set do I use? I do not have a RAID configuration, so I would just need the proper SATA drivers. Additionally, since I reinstalled XP, I can only burn DVDs at <2x speed and I have verified DMA and uninstalled and reinstalled the controllers to no avail, why is this happening? Any help would definitely be appreciated, thank you!

[Severian]

You are indeed the master Fernando! Your advice was spot on.

For this board there was only one "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section. There was also a "Primary IDE Channel" and a "Secondary IDE Channel".

I replaced the driver for the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" with the one from the 6.86 "Legacy" folder as you suggested. After the reboot there was only one device in the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section which was indeed the "NVIDIA nForce Parallel ATA Controller".

The mirrored array is now seen perfectly. I also hooked up the optical drive to the PATA controller just to make sure that would be seen as well and it is.

I can't thank you enough for your help mate!

Cheers, Sev

[Fernando 1]

@ Severian:

Fine, that you succeeded the way I recommended.

@chaosbuzz:

1. Your nForce chipset belongs to the MCP51 series.

2. Since your mainboard is not fully supporting AHCI and additionally no Windows OS likes any other IDE driver than the MS generic ones, I recommend to install the OS without integrating any nForce S-ATA driver.

Once the OS is up, I would run the installer of my "Special WHQL Performance Pack" for Windows XP. You will find further informations and the download link here.

This way you will get the currently best nForce chipset drivers inclusive the AHCI supporting nForce IDE drivers v9.99.09 at once.

3. If you should not see the "Safely remove hardware" button within your systray, you should install this tool.

CU

Fernando

Edited July 29, 2008 by Fernando 1

[Theriex]

Thanks for the help Fernando, it was a setting in the BIOS, apparently the OS doesn't like my shared video memory setting set at the lowest setting (16MB) (probably has something to do with a 2GB RAM limit or something), so I set it to the next highest value that worked (32MB) and it installed.

Here's a to you.

[chaosbuzz]

Hey Fernando, thanks for the info! I tried to install this on top of the windows SATA drivers and it does not enable me to hotplug (when I turn on my external sata HD, it is not recognized if windows is already running. Should this driverset allow me to hot swap? I can reformat and install windows, is there a driver I can slipstream in to get the hotswap functionality?

Thanks!

Chaos

@chaosbuzz:

1. Your nForce chipset belongs to the MCP51 series.

2. Since your mainboard is not fully supporting AHCI and additionally no Windows OS likes any other IDE driver than the MS generic ones, I recommend to install the OS without integrating any nForce S-ATA driver.

Once the OS is up, I would run the installer of my "Special WHQL Performance Pack" for Windows XP. You will find further informations and the download link here.

This way you will get the currently best nForce chipset drivers inclusive the AHCI supporting nForce IDE drivers v9.99.09 at once.

3. If you should not see the "Safely remove hardware" button within your systray, you should install this tool.

CU

Fernando

[Fernando 1]

Hey Fernando, thanks for the info! I tried to install this on top of the windows SATA drivers and it does not enable me to hotplug (when I turn on my external sata HD, it is not recognized if windows is already running. Should this driverset allow me to hot swap?

If you have installed my "Special WHQL Performance Pack", you will be able to use the hotplug feature.

If you don't get the "Safely remove hardware" icon automaticly within your systray, you should install the tool HotSwap! Here is the link:

http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/...k.info/?lang=en

[Kurt_Aust]

It would seem that accessing the array adds significant overhead (more filters) as I got the message "Not enough server storage is available to process this command" when accessing a shared folder over the network after rebuilding my old box with 2*250GB in RAID 0 (yes I know it's risky but I've written a batch file to back it up across the network twice a week). The error did not exist when the 2 drives were in normal BASE mode.

A google search finds a Microsoft knowledge base article that had the solution. Note that the maximum value given in the article is wrong, it can go up to 50 decimal on NT5.x, 16 didn't work for me so I went to 24.

I also wanted to see if I could dual boot with Linux Mint but it didn't recognise the array and for some reason the partitioner broke the array even though it was only reading the tables. However as it only read the tables I was able to go into the RAID utility, delete & recreate the array, with no further problems.

[watchdog]

click me!"]nvidia sata raid integrationcan you help me?about the same problest at post 1246 but i got nvidia gfoce 1700.ill wait your reply.thanks

[Fernando 1]

can you help me?about the same problest at post 1246 but i got nvidia gfoce 1700.

The link is broken. If you want help, you should post your problem.

[watchdog]

I have tried this with the SATA drivers from Nvidia Release 6.53, it worked , Motherboard is an A8N-Sli Deluxe. just needed to change nvatabus.inf to nvraid.inf and it worked without a hitch

just wanna know, is the nvatabus.inf is just the same with nvata.inf?pls reaply to this.thanks in advance

[watchdog]

can you help me?about the same problest at post 1246 but i got nvidia gfoce 1700.

The link is broken. If you want help, you should post your problem.

my problem is this.i got an acer chipset with vista os in it.i wanted to format it and install an xp instead.but the (nvidia) sata wont allow me.i tried integrating it,but fail to install due to the so called "unknown disk' prompt.what should i do.thanks for your first reply.i really appreciate it.

Edited August 6, 2008 by watchdog

[Fernando 1]

just wanna know, is the nvatabus.inf is just the same with nvata.inf?

Both files contain the informations regarding the installation of the nForce S-ATA driver. You will find the NVATABUS.INF and the associated driver named NVATABUS.SYS within the LEGACY folder, whereas the similar files of the SATA_IDE folder are named NVATA.INF and NVATA.SYS.

my problem is this.i got an acer chipset with vista os in it.i wanted to format it and install an xp instead.but the (nvidia) sata wont allow me.i tried integrating it,but fail to install due to the so called "unknown disk' prompt.what should i do.

Have you read the Annex 2 part of my guide (first post of this thread)?