Whelp, I drun koofed

[mao91]

Maybe working on computers whilst drunk isn't the best plan.

 

Yet here I am, drowning my sorrows in liquid assets as I troubleshoot things seemingly the long way in an effort to fix my precious PC.
So I was running my OS off of a RAID 0 array (2x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB). Everything was golden. Untilllllll (dun dun dunnnn).

 

I installed a stupid hotswap bay in my computer. And plugged a drive into it. Apparently, it was plugged into SATA controller 1 (the one that was set to RAID) and it fucked up my RAID 0 the next time I tried to boot. Either that or it was the flash drive I plugged in. 

The next time I booted, my PC tried to boot into a non-bootable flash drive (like dafuq man come on bro). That's when shit got MLG real bruh. 

Basically, after that my RAID array disappeared from my boot order list, so my PC always went straight into BIOS when I turned it on. I could still boot into my OS if I booted into the RAD volume manually, but I couldn't get it back into the boot order list. So I decided tonight to dismantle my RAID. 
 

Okay so maybe that wasn't the best idea. Basically, now I can't rebuild a RAID array. Well, I can, but Windows 7 installer won't recognize it as something it can install to. It won't even let me install to it. So I take my SSDs out and hook them up to my laptop and wipe them and put them back into the desktop, to see if maybe it's the drives.

Nope, it's not the drives. DaFUQ man. Forreal. Okay. So now I decide to try something else. I disable Intel Rapid Storage Technology inside the BIOS and boot into the Windows 7 installer flash drive I made. 

HOLY FUCKING BALLS BATMAN. I can see both of my SSDs for installation to either one.

Okay so I go back into my BIOS and rebuild the RAID array, turning Rapid Storage Technology back on. Boot into the flash drive and.... nothing. No drives detected.
 

Go back into BIOS and dismantle the RAID, disable Intel Rabid Storage Technology, boot back into the Windows 7 installer and... I can install to either of my SSDs! It recognizes them!


Okay so that's the farthest I've gotten. I mean, I've installed 7 on one SSD, but I'd like to rebuild the RAID to reinstall everything again. Mostly it's because my SSDs are tiny (250GB) and I'd like to combine the storage capacity, ya know? I like having a 500GB OS & Apps drive. 

So... does anyone have an idea what might be going on here? If I assemble a RAID array, it won't recognize it for installation or booting. But a single SSD is working perfectly.

I won't accept "well sometimes RAID is weird, blah blah blah" because IT FUCKING WORKED PERFECTLY JUST TWO WEEKS AGO MAN. I fucked something up in my BIOS and it's all weird now. I even re-flashed it with the same version. Maybe I need to upgrade to the latest version. That's the next thing I'm going to try. 

But if anyone has any idea of anything else I might try, I'm open to suggestions.

[Josephdalepi]

build the raid array in your bios, thats fine

the problem is raid drivers

[mao91]

build the raid array in your bios, thats fine

the problem is raid drivers

 

There only seems to be one RAID driver for ASUS X99 (which I get directly from ASUS). I install it each time I want to load up a RAID array to install to, but the computer still doesn't want to install or boot to it. This is partially why I'm wondering if upgrading the BIOS to the latest version (and resetting all settings to default) could work around this.

[Josephdalepi]

There only seems to be one RAID driver for ASUS X99 (which I get directly from ASUS). I install it each time I want to load up a RAID array to install to, but the computer still doesn't want to install or boot to it. This is partially why I'm wondering if upgrading the BIOS to the latest version (and resetting all settings to default) could work around this.

another one is, oddly enough, the mobo port the usb drive is plugged into

if plugged into a usb 3 it will act like this

make sure it is plugged into usb 2

[mao91]

another one is, oddly enough, the mobo port the usb drive is plugged into

if plugged into a usb 3 it will act like this

make sure it is plugged into usb 2

 

I had it in a front USB 2 port. Maybe a rear USB 2 port could solve this. But I'm not entirely certain.

[Josephdalepi]

I had it in a front USB 2 port. Maybe a rear USB 2 port could solve this. But I'm not entirely certain.

it could.  id say try it

[mao91]

First and foremost, let this thread be a warning to people: do not drink and forum.

Secondly, after working on it until 4:30am (and now coming back to it with a fresh mind) I think I'm going to run my SSDs independently and see if I can find a performance difference with running the OS on one and all of my applications on the other. I can imagine it'll be more reliable (if I have to reinstall the OS, I theoretically wouldn't lose my programs). 

Anyone here done that?