Setup mSata boot drive with 2 HDD Raid 0

I have installed an 850 EVO mSata 500gb. After installation of windows 7 home 64 bit and drivers I re-installed my HDD's that were previously raid 0. Seemed to work fine but something strange happened. I could not use my USB with an external HDD or a USB stick (mouse was OK). The drives would show up in Device Manager under disk drives but would have an exclamation mark. After a long time on the phone with Alienware support re-installing the USB drivers and the like he had come to a conclusion that I could not have the boot drive outside the raid 0. He wanted me to do a re-install of windows remotely. I said I would phone back if necessary.

I removed the two raid 0 drives and booted into windows and the same thing, USB drives did not work. I re-installed windows with no HDD installed, just the mSata. Everything was fine until I installed IRST. At that point the USB drive was no longer available. I un-installed IRST and it would still not work. I did a system restore and the USB drive was working again. I have successfully installed all drivers (except IRST) and all is fine. I have re-installed my 2 raid 0 HDD and still OK.

Can I not use the windows IRST? Can I run this mSata boot - 2 HDD Raid 0 setup? The dos Raid 0 program seems to be fine. I am not exactly sure if I need the IRST program in windows. I would like to re-setup my 2 HDD to get rid of the old recovery partition, will I be able to do that in the dos program? The drives are definitely faster with Raid 0. I have Samsung magician installed and rapid mode is on.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hmm... that's a really goofy problem. Not sure what the deal is, but it might be something simple.

What version of Intel RST are you using? Perhaps that is the problem. If you are using the latest, try the version from the Dell Drivers page for your machine. If that is the one you have problems with, try the latest from Intel.

 

I thought it was goofy too!

I installed the most recent version IRST 14.8.0.1042
IRST installed fine but would not start, also had to install .net 4.5 in order to install this. USB worked fine.
When I double clicked on the icon in the tray it came up with a no start error.
I uninstalled and installed the Dell version 12.0.7.1002, it installed and ran but now no USB sticks/drives allowed
I removed my 2 750 Raid 0 hard drives and as long as IRST was running it would not allow USB storage use. The USB drives show up but with an exclamation mark. (pic included)
To remove IRST I uninstalled the program and had to use system restore to get my old storage controller back and USB storage works fine again. I noticed the naming of the drives changed under Disk Drives depending on the controller. It appears that Raid is not running with the old controller.
I am not that experienced with Raid 0

 

I have used RAID0 for years without issue and never have experienced what is happening to you. I am using RAID0 right now on the 18 and it does not have that problem. I am not sure what is going on.

 

Mr. Fox You had it right, something simple. I uninstalled Samsung magician and reinstalled the Dell version of IRST and all works good. I even reinstalled Samsung Magician and Rapid mode and all is good. Previously I installed Magician first thing after re-install. I thought it would help extend the life of the new mSata.

I figured Rapid mode, which is suppose to cache the drive with unused memory didn't get along well with installing a new Intel storage controller afterwards. Looks like it was a sequence problem, probably something you would not have done.

Thanks for your help, you got me on the right track with the IRST. Alienware support could not figure it out.

Looks as though Raid 0 is worth it, my spinning HDD's run pretty fast for non accelerated drives.

 

Glad you got it sorted out. I really appreciate you reporting back your findings and the fix. In to many threads the OP does not close the tread out.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

Awesome. Thank you for reporting back. I agree with @deadsmiley comment about that.

Samsung Magician often causes weird issues (sometimes even BSOD) on systems using RAID0. I stopped using it entirely on systems running RAID0 in the beginning. I haven't had any problems with it on systems running independent drives in AHCI mode, but I eventually stopped using it forever on all systems. With an mSATA you can use Intel RST for HDD cache acceleration instead of Magician bloatware.

 

I've decided not to use Samsung drives at all with that ultimate bloat, SanDisk here no B$ just performance.

+rep for the valuable info.

 

Yeah, Samsung software is definitely bloated crapware designed for low-tech consumer noobs. There's really no need for it. It's a shame they distribute firmware updates that way, but for the average consumer it's probably good because it does not require any knowledge or skill to use it... just point and click for the average mouse jockey. The Samsung brand name used to be associated with exceptional quality, but that has taken a huge nose dive over the past couple of years. Their stuff really ain't all that special any more.

SanDisk Extreme SSD are wicked performers, indeed. And, they are highly reliable as well.

 

That would be great.
How can I do that, I currently am dual booting win7/ win10 after I shrunk my mSata to have a 60 GB drive for win 10 and 400 for win7. I shrunk it some 22GB more to allow for an accelerated drive and tried to accelerate but ended up with a bsod and had to restore my msata in the dos IRST to a non raid disk. I thought I was losing my boot drive. I guess a raid rookie like me shouldn't be trying all this stuff.