HOW TO: Windows Installation Thread (includes SATA III, SSD Upgrade, RAID0 Discussion)

I just installed an 840 EVO into my M14. I followed the steps in this guide and the Windows 7 How To article. I left the BIOS set to RAID, but when I run Samsung Magician, it obviously shows that I'm not running in AHCI mode (says deactivated) and the SATA Interface is not detected. Should I be worried about this? I ran the performance test, and these were my numbers:

Sequetial Read 548 MB/s
Random Read 95913 IOPS
Sequential Write 529 MB/s
Random Write 67217 IOPS

Should I run the OS options as well? Thanks for any help.

 

Samsung Magician and most other "SSD Toolbox" type applications do not work with RAID. You don't really need Magician for anything and the system works better with the BIOS set to RAID. You are using AHCI because RAID includes AHCI, but AHCI does not include RAID capabilities. Setting the BIOS to AHCI introduces limitations. So, long story short you have it set up perfectly that way. Your numbers look good. Not sure what your last question means... OS options?

 

Thanks Mr. Fox. The last questions was about an optimization in Magician. I meant to say "OS Optimization" instead of "OS option". Thanks for the help!!

 

You're welcome. While it does offer a degree of convenience, all of those OS optimization features can be implemented without the use of Samsung Magician, so you have no loss of functionality.

 

**bumped**

 

Where is that bumped from? Did you bury a post with your last merge?


@Quoted: Typically, backed up games and etc shouldn't show any performance loss being moved from computer to computer, or install to install.

I would just format the 100gb SSD, leave the 1tb detached, install Windows and your drivers, then reattach, and get your games to recognize that they're installed!

 

I've got two Crucial M4 512GB SSD's in a Raid0 and noticed that one of them needs to have the firmware upgraded. What's the best procedure? Link?

 

Crucial provides the procedure in their instructions. Firmware and Downloads | Crucial.com

You will most likely need to use a DOS or Linux bootable flash. You may have to temporarily change the BIOS to AHCI for flashing, then set it back. Unless the firmware has release notes with a warning that it is a "destructive flash" it will not hurt your RAID0 setup. (If it is a destructive flash update, it will destroy any data on the drives, RAID0 or not.) After flashing, set the BIOS back to RAID and you should be good to go. I have done it many times with Crucial and OCZ SSD. Always good to be safe and create a drive image just in case something goes wrong.

Nope... click the icon link next to the user name and it will take you to the quoted post... which is here... http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ws-7-ultimate-windows-8-m18x.html#post9448842

Closed with a redirect to this thread.

 

hey mr fox, sorry for bumping this old threat but I hve just installed windows 7, downgrading from 8 and I think I screwed things up badly. First of all when i came to install it on my SSD it said that my GTP is not in recommended order or something of that sort. I also had to do some BIOS changes to allow windows 8 to boot from my CD so i can actually install windows 7. What upsets me is that in the BIOS i still have the option to use windows 8 fast boot even though i am using windows 7, makes u feel that something is wrong. Get me? And finally I installed all my drivers manually from the dellwebsite and I am not sure if something is missing. When i tried using the autodetect tool it recommend AMD driver downloads eventhough i have GTX 680Ms !!! So, what should I do in concern with the windows 7, I only wiped out the C and D partitions (my SSd and my HDD), should have I also wiped out the other partitions like the recovery and the other stuff I forgot what it was called


Thanks in advance.

 

Threads like this are meant to be bumped. It is better than starting a new one for every time a question arises.

I would not worry about what Dell SystemDetect tells you. It does not surprise me that the information is wrong... it's obvious just software and it doesn't have a brain.

I would set the BIOS to true Legacy mode (not Legacy Option Rom), use Diskpart to "clean" your drive and start over again with an MBR disk, not GPT.

Set the BIOS as shown in the top part of the image...

 

hey Thanks sooo much fox, so in that sense i should reinstall windows again right? and do it in MBR disk right? so basically i download this diskpart and then use it to clean and then i use MBR so i can reinstall my windows 7 properly right? and I guess this time i will predownload allmy drivers on my external hard drive. Would you mind giving me a step by step instruction on how to do this Fox? if you dont mind? or you can give me a preferred link of doing the reinstallation process because i dont want to screw this up again.


Thanks in advance

 

You're welcome. And, yes... reinstall Windows.

Diskpart is a native Windows utility. Run it from an elevated command prompt to use it. You will not be able to clean the disk in use by Windows, so you would have to boot from Windows installation media, or delete all partitions during Windows setup so that only unallocated disk space is present.

Look at the opening post of this thread for detailed instructions.

 

Ok so what i learn was that i basically have to set it to raid0 and Then do the diskpart and THEN install windows 7 correct? I am so sorry i am just a newb to this stuff and i cannot afford someone to come indtall it for me as i am a student alone in london now

 

You cannot run the Diskpart "clean" command on the Windows OS drive running within Windows because the drive is in use. You would have to boot from Windows DVD or USB and choose an option to boot to a command prompt to run that on the OS volume.

Look at the first post in this thread. With the BIOS set to RAID (not AHCI) follow the steps outlined to delete all partitions in your volume and install Windows 7 to unallocated disk space. You can install Windows 7 to one drive and after you are finished setting up Windows, installing drivers, etc. you can create a RAID0 membership with a matching drive within Windows using Rapid Storage Technology. This is also mentioned in the first post.

 

Hey fox there is no option for integrated peripherals on my bios, just a simple sata operations tab that is already set to raid. What should i do?

And btw my alienware laptop came natively as windows 8,its ok to install windows 7 right?

 

None of the newer computers have the BIOS setup like the video in post #1. In the video example that is an old Acer BIOS and the menus can vary between brands. I assume that is what you are referring to. That's what the comment " The BIOS and RAID configuration screens shown in the videos below may look slightly different than the BIOS in your Alienware, but conceptually the process is identical." right above that video was intended to convey.

Apparently you are speaking of a different machine than what is in your signature. The M17xR2 never came with Windows 8. The Alienware systems starting with the M17xR3 and M18xR1 to the latest all use InsydeH20 and it looks very different that the example video shows. The menu layout is not important as long as you have the right settings.

Since your BIOS is set to RAID that's all you need to be concerned with other than making sure you are not using Secure Boot... needs to be Legacy. Yes, if you have a valid product key you can install Windows 7 even though your machine came with Windows 8. (Windows 7 does not support Secure Boot.)

 

Yes i amm sooooo sorry my current computer is an m18x r2 eith gtx 680ms in sli and an ssd and an hdd, and yes it came eith windows 8

 

Ok so basically i dont need to do the raid because obviously its done, but what about the diskpart and what about the partitions? Should i just delete every single one and then start over from the beginning or what?

 

Yes, you want to start you Windows installation from scratch on an MBR disk that contains no partitions (all unallocated disk space).

Using DiskPart on the Windows 7 DVD

DiskPart Command-Line Options

After using Diskpart to wipe it out (clean), use the convert command to make it MBR, then let Windows install to unallocated disk space...

This video shows how to use the command prompt during Windows setup, but instead of converting a dynamic disk you want to use the clean command on the selected disk(s).

<iframe width='640' height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9mfco8b0-HE?rel=0" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

 

Hey fox i tried to click the repair button and it says that 'this version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of windows u are trying to repair, try using a recovery disk that is compatible with this version of windows'

 

Hey fox i tried to click the repair button and it says that 'this version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of windows u are trying to repair, try using a recovery disk that is compatible with this version of windows'

 

Hmmm... never seen that error before. Don't know what to tell you about that. Is it the same OS version as what you have installed? If not, maybe that's the problem. It may be a situation where you can't repair an OS that has not been installed as far as the Windows installation media is concerned.

Just run Windows Setup. When you get to the disk selection screen delete all the visible partitions on the disk you want Windows installed to and then let Windows create new ones.

 

Hey listen i deleted all the partitions and before installing i thought i shuld give the repair a chance now maybe it would work and it did, shuld i dtill run diskpart for the gpt conversion thing?

 

Sure, having the disks as MBR would be ideal.

 

Hey mr fox i wanted to thank u for helping me, i think its fine now. If u have any other advice for me about bios setting or anything tell me . Btw just wanted to tell u when i changed from sing le card to sli my screen went sorta bad and (half of it went black the other half was flickering red). But i waited it out and when i restarted it it was fine. Is this normal?

 

Glad to help. Happy everything turned out well. Not sure why that happened with the screen. If everything is fine after restarting, then it may have just been something odd with the drivers. If it happens again, you may want to try another SLI bridge cable if it only does it with SLI enabled.

 

Did you get that problem sorted with the red flickering? Was it the SLI bridge?

 

Having 2x1TB RAID0 for data was not cutting it any more, so this should be fun... my drive configuration will now be 2x256GB SSD RAID0 (Windows 7), 2x2TB HDD RAID0, 120GB mSATA SSD (Windows 8).

 

Tell me if I did this correctly please

1) I set the BIOS boot mood to RAID

2) In the Windows 8.1 setup, I pressed F6 and loaded the IRST Driver 2.​9.​0.​1001

3) Using Disk part, I cleaned both my 1 TB EVO SSDs then reconverted them to GPT

4) I created the 3 partitions needed for Windows + C: + D: on the 1st SSD

5) I left the 2nd SSD unpartitioned

6) Once I was in Windows and installed the intel chipset drivers followed by the IRST Driver 12.​9.​0.​1001 driver/application, I created a RAID 0 array using the 1st + 2nd SSD which was unpartitioned

7) Windows took like an hour to migrate all the data

8) I started using my laptop and noticed 0 difference than when it was on AHCI mode

is this how it's supposed to be done? was I right in not partitioning the 2nd SSD during setup?

 

In case I had not already said so, welcome to our Community and congratulations on your new beast.

With respect to the RAID0 setup, you made it a little bit more complicated than it needed to be in terms of formatting preparation. No need to format the drives as GPT or any of that rigmarole. Windows Setup will create the partitions for you effortlessly and without any action necessary on your part. The opening post of this thread explains the easy way. You can create the RAID0 array after installed Windows or during Windows Setup just as you did. I frequently do it that way. Either way works fine. It is not necessary to use F6 drivers during Windows setup if you wait to create the RAID0 membership using RST after installing Windows. The F6 drivers are only needed when you create the RAID0 membership before installing Windows. Without them Windows Setup will normally error out and tell you that Windows cannot be installed on the select drive.

Below are some links that are useful to new forum members.There is a lot of information already posted and it is not necessary to start a new thread for every question that arises. Feel free to use Google to search topics and participate in existing discussions. One of the links below explains a special way of using Google to find stuff exclusively in our Community and it is very effective.

You can find this information by clicking the link in my signature. It is at the bottom of the linked post.

 

I'll just put this right here for now. If you're trying to clean install Windows 8.0 or newer, you will find these Unofficial Windows Reinstallation Guides by Philip Yip are indispensable.

 

Hi Mr. Fox and a big thank you to this thread I just stumbled upon.

Here is my situation, and like everyone else, just looking for your guidance for my best odds of both redundancy and performance. I have a Alienware m18x R2 laptop. Inside, I have three 750Gb HDD and one 80Gb mSata drive. What are my best setup options for these drives when it comes to performance and redundancy? Unfortunately, I only have Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit OS disc that came with my laptop.

Here is my thinking based on your initial post on page one:

I simple set Sata operation to RAID in BIOS. Wipe all HDDs clean from current RAID setup and be sure I have 100% unallocated space on one volume in disk manager prior to installing OS. Then, install W7 Home Premium to unallocated space of all HDDs. Then install all drivers (from Dells support site) and use IRST to setup the RAID 0 array after WIndows 7 and drivers are installed???

OR

Should I setup the RAID 0 array from the CTRL-I pre-splash screen using two of the 750GB HDDs, install the OS and all drivers on the non-RAID 0 HDD (750Gb drive) and then use the RAID 0 array for all my data???? THEN use IRST to enable the 80Gb mSata to cache the RAID 0 array? I do a lot of video editing and would assume I would place all my projects and raw camcorder video on the RAID 0 array.

Am I thinking correctly when it comes to my options? Sorry but very lost and looking for guidance. Thank you and anyone else that may lend some knowledge.

 

I would go with the first option. The only thing that should be clarified is you would install Windows to unallocated space on Disk 0 (not install to unallocated space of all HDDs). Otherwise, just right... you got it! :thumbsup:

I would recommend that once you have that all set up, RAID 0 volume created, use Intel RST and the mSATA to cache accelerate the HDD RAID 0 volume.

 

Thanks for getting back to me Mr. Fox!

I do have one question regarding your reply. In regards to "The only thing that should be clarified is you would install Windows to unallocated space on Disk 0 (not install to unallocated space of all HDDs)."

Will this "Disk 0" be all of the unallocated space of all three 750GB HDD and the 80Gb mSata drive? Basically, will Disk 0 be 2330GB (3x750 + 80GB) of unallocated space that I will install Windows 7 too or do I need to create a volume from that 2330Gb to install OS too during clean install? If I need to create a volume from that unallocated space, how much is suggested? I just want to be clear prior to installation.

 

If you create the RAID 0 membership before installing Windows and use RST F6 drivers during the install, then it will be 3x750GB. Do not include the 80GB or you will end up with 4x80GB and the rest of the space with be completely unusable.

If you use the first option mentioned above (as I recommend in the opening post) you will have Disk 0, Disk 1, Disk 2 and Disk 3. Install Windows to unallocated space on Disk 0 (one of the three 750GB HDD). After your Windows installation is all finished, use Intel Rapid Storage Technology within Windows to add the other two 750GB drives to the membership, set the stripe size to 128K. When the conversion to RAID 0 is finished, use the Windows Disk Management Utility to extend the volume to use the added space from the two additional 750GB drives, or create another partition in that unallocated RAID 0 space.

After you are done with that, use Intel Rapid Storage Technology in Windows to use the 80GB mSATA to create a 64GB acceleration cache for the RAID 0 membership.

If this is too simplified and brief, let me know.

 

I will try out your recommendation and report back on any problems. If you may...what is the difference between setting up the RAID 0 array in pre-bootup, then istalling Win7, versus the method you recommend above? Just curious.

Thank you so much for all your help! It is greatly appreciated!:thumbsup:

 

If you use the Intel Option ROM Utility (Ctrl+I at POST) to create the RAID 0 membership and then use F6 drivers during Windows installation it will shortcut the process. I offer the alternative as an option because some people are more comfortable working in a Windows environment. So primarily for convenience, but otherwise no difference.

There is a secondary reason that I take the long cut and do it in Windows. I make myself an image of my fully configured Windows installation before I create the RAID 0 membership. I think have an image that I can use for disaster recovery in either scenario (single drive or RAID 0). If one of my drives dies or I decide to use one of them in another machine and live with a smaller volume, reinstalling from image is very flexible and I don't need to start over from scratch. If I create an image of the RAID 0 volume I cannot use it to restore a single disk setup. I tried a few times and it always failed to work for me. It never fails doing it this way.

 

Question...

I made sure all three 750Gb HDD and the mSata were all unallocated space and left all four of the drives as unallocated. I went and began installation on Disk 0 unallocated space and the laptop continues to reboot. It asked to press any key to boot from cd but I just left it alone and it continued installation. It then rebooted again and is now sitting at the "Choose a user name and computer name screen". Are the reboots normal? Since I normally create a new volume of the unallocated space then format, and then install Windows to the formatted HDD; I never saw the reboot and continue of installation. Sorry for being such a Noob.

 

Yes the reboots are normal. If you are at that screen you're at the right place, just follow the prompts and continue the process.

No worries... everyone starts as a noob. Nobody is born knowing how to do anything.

 

Almost scared me away with your Avatar picture change.

Thanks again. I will follow up as I am installing drivers/windows updates. so tedious...

Forgot to ask prior to posting but within this long thread; are there directions on setting up the RAID 0 array using IRST? Once the RAID is complete I can then extend the RAID 0 array using Disk Manager and/or create additional volumes/partitions, correct? Is it a good practice to only RAID 0 two of the 750Gb HDDs and leave one 750Gb HDD outside the array? OR would it be best to RAID 0 all three 750Gb HDDs and set 64Gb of the 80Gb mSata drive to cache entire array? I read somewhere that its nice to leave OS on a drive outside array or vice-verse and put OS/programs on array and use a drive outside of the array for data/projects. Any suggestions on all of this??? Many thanks again!

 

LOL... Wolfenstein: The New Order avatars I made this evening from the images on the game difficultly selection menu. Just finished the first play-through of the campaign on a low difficultly level, so now I will play through again and pick up all the secrets I missed on a higher difficultly level.

Lots of fun killing Nazis. Too bad it is an OpenGL engine without multi-GPU support. It still plays and looks amazing in spite of its shortcoming. Thoroughly enjoyed it as I have the previous Wolfenstein games.

 

Hi Mr. Fox!

Forgot to ask prior to my last posting;

within this long thread; are there directions on setting up the RAID 0 array using IRST? Once the RAID is complete I can then extend the RAID 0 array using Disk Manager and/or create additional partitions, correct? Is it a good to only RAID 0 two of the 750Gb HDDs and leave one of the 750Gb HDD outside the array and then enable mSata to cache the RAID array? OR would it be best to RAID 0 all three 750Gb HDDs and set 64Gb of the 80Gb mSata drive to cache the entire array? I read somewhere that its nice to leave OS on a drive outside array or vice-verse and put programs on array and use a drive outside of the array for data/projects. Any suggestions on all of this??? Many thanks again!

 

I'm glad you liked it. I went ahead and made the ultimate betrayal by purchasing this game for my Playstation 4. I enjoyed every second of that game. I even finished both character arcs because I enjoyed it that much.

Oh man

Spoiler

That part when the mega nazi gets half off his head cut off by the helicopter blades!

 

I would put all three 750GB HDD into the RAID 0 membership and use the mSATA to accelerate that volume with a 64GB cache. The initial partition size (if you create the RAID 0 array in Windows) will be 750GB. Open the Windows Disk Management Utility. Right click on the RAID 0 drive (you will see 2/3 of the disk is unallocated space) and choose "Extend volume" and leave it set to the max. Or, if you want to create a new partition or two, right click on the unallocated space area, choose that option and select the partition size that you want. You can have one huge partition using all available disk space (my personal preference) or chop it up into partitions with their own driver letters. All of the partitions will operated with RAID 0 performance because they are part of the RAID 0 array. Some people like having multiple partitions to organize things. I personally prefer a huge volume and using folders to manage my files.

What you read about leaving the OS on a drive outside of the array would only apply if you have the OS installed on a disk dissimilar to the other drives (SSD or different size disk). You don't want to mingle differing drives in a RAID 0 array. Otherwise, that advice is invalid. If you have a matched set of disks, the more you include in the array the fast the array performs. All you would accomplish by leaving one of the 750GB out of the array is that your OS volume would function at half the speed as the RAID 0 volume. So, what you read was bad advice if the OS is on a disk that matches those in the array.

 

I hope you are getting paid for lending your knowledge on here! You have honestly been nothing but a great Mentor and do it with pride. Thank you Mr. Fox!

 

Thank you for the kind words.

Your appreciation is the only compensation. I am here as a volunteer.

 

Well Mr. Fox +1 Rep

 

Yeah the mods here do a good job keeping things flowing. Mr Fox also for getting people's machines flowing lol.

 

I have a question that may well, be very stupid. But anyway, I shall ask it I've read your entire first post brother Fox. It's helped me setup my Kingston 120gb msata for my AW 17. I've now got 64gb cache enabled. I've extended the other 48gb as a volume. All good on that front, very nice boot/load times. Anyway, so moving on. I read the part about TRIM. What is TRIM and also can I activate it for my msata? I'm not really educated when it comes to SSD's and msata PCB's. So I'm sorry if this question has been asked a thousand times already brother Fox.

 

I thought everything was going great but...

RST finally finished combining all three 750Gb, which took about half the day. Once RST said 100% complete, I then opened Win7 Disc Management. I right-clicked on the c-drive and "Expand Disc" is completely greyed out. Disc manager only shows the restore partitioned part of disc 0 and then right after is the allocated partition containing the OS (C:\). It is only showing 1 disc with a total size of about 699Gb. Right below the OS volume is the unallocated 80Gb mSata drive. That is all.

Prior to setting up the RAID 0 array in IRST, I checked disc management and it saw all drives (OS disc and unallocated 2x 750Gb and the mSata). I made sure to select all three drives (I left the mSata unchecked), enabled disc caching check box, and created the RAID volume. It did notify me that only 2Tb would be available. And the creation began processing.

Any pointers???