Can't install windows on new motherboard, gonna cry

[Enten]

Here is my board. It's the absolute worst board on the planet. (upgraded from an AM3, and specifically chose the same brand ASROCK for "compatibility")

Not only did my Raid 0 array not carry over (each drive was recognized as being in an array, but would not allow me to boot from the array no matter what I did in bios)

Tried legacy, raid, UEFI, you name it. 

Eventually gave up and tried to restore from an image backup I made earlier. Nope, can't do that because the Win10 boot disc shows my raid 0 "array" as 2 seperate drives. 

Sooo I went back into bios and decided to flash it from 4.43 to 4.7. Nope, didn't fix the problem, in fact that update made it worse, because now when I tried to restore from the image "WINDOWS CANNOT FIND A SYSTEM IMAGE ON THIS COMPUTER" despite when I browse around for "drivers" the image data is RIGHT THERE ON THE ROOT OF THE DRIVE!!! 

OK, I thought, maybe it's because I'm using a dock via USB 3.0? (Despite the image being recognized on bios ver4.43) so I tried plugging it in sata directly. Nope, won't work this way either. "Cannot find system image" again. 

I guess I have to go back to version 4.43 when it worked? So yes, I downgrade the bios and guess what? NOPE! Doesn't let me restore the image because it apparently doesn't exist. It however shows perfectly when I plug it into any other computer, just not this one. 

It has to be a raid issue then? I've been having that non stop. I go to their website and download the raid drivers. After an hour of not understanding why the hell I can't install them, apparently I needed the "FLOPPY" drivers instead. Go figure? 

Yeah that wasn't fun either, as when I tried to do a fresh install on win10 (so maybe I can restore the image data once I'm actually booted into an OS?) the drive list is blank. I have to manually load these 3 drivers each time from a USB drive before the raid 0 array shows up.

Now I proceed to install windows! HOORAY!

...Not so fast. I'm using a bootable USB 3.0 stick to install windows, as I have done hundreds of times in the past on many systems. Except this time it crashes halfway through with an 0x00000e9 error each time. 

I try the alternative, booting from the same USB but using UEFI instead of USB in bios to boot, and the installation actually gets pretty close to finishes! 

... Until the computer needs to restart during the process, which ends up corrupting the installation. I cannot repair it, restore it, or anything. Needs to start all over again. 

I give up. It's been 11 hours and I think I'm even further away from using this computer than when I began this fiasco this morning. 

I have come across this and also this which I should have taken as a warning before getting this board, people experiencing identical problems such as my own. I am however unable to resolve with the solutions suggested. 

So a few questions, how should I proceed? The goal is to take the windows system image on my 3TB hard drive, and to restore it to my 512gb raid 0 array. I literally have ran out of every possible idea. I thought about using 3rd party tools, or restoring the image to another 500gb-ish drive and try to clone THAT to the raid 0 array, but I am certain I will run into similar issues. 

 

See, the problem is when I load the raid drivers during installation, it works. But since the install needs to restart several times, as soon as it does, the raid drivers are "lost" and the setup cannot continue. As far as I know there is no way to inject the drivers back halfway through installation. There has to be another way. 

Is there a 3rd party bootable tool that allows me to restore an official win10 image to my array? 

Can I use command prompt in my win10 install disk to restore the image to the array instead of going through the "Re-image your computer" utility, which did not work? 

I don't have the CD to my motherboard (Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac) but is there a way to permanently install all the raid drivers and whatnot so I don't need to do it each time I boot up the windows CD? 

Do any of you have other ideas? I think I have exhausted my supply. 

 

Sadly I cannot provide any dump files as I have been unable to boot into windows AT ALL. 

 

I created an ubuntu USB, which did in fact boot. But how can I install windows through that?

[PowerChaos]

hmm

so your drivers are not working to find your raid disk

so you use hardware raid controller ? or software raid ( windows 10 created raid ? ) 

 

i guess you are using the hardware raid controller

in that case , isnt there a option in the controller to unraid and re raid the hard disks ?

also i would never use raid 0 for a boot drive ... it mess up a lot of things ( raid 5 is better , and raid 1 is also good  ) in case something goes wrong ( like now  ) 

in case you do not mind of losing your files ofcourse

 

also make sure if you use raid 0 that the disks are connected to the right sata port ( port 1 and port 2 if the raid is created that way ) as else the raid 0 will not work ... that happends with splitting up files  )

 

else you could try easy2boot to do the windows install

it support driver injection and automatic windows install ( based on a ini file ) 

no idea how to configure it , but i know they allow to do that

 

if you still need files from that drive and you got a spare drive to copy the stuff to , then use a linux live iso , boot from it and copy it over from there ( if linux find the drives )

then you can unraid the drives and add a raid to it again so it is proper configured

 

please note , software raid is NOT the same as Hardware raid

if you used software raid and that is causing all the trouble then you can do the following

use a windows live cd ( windows PE ) and boot it from usb ( takes some time ,depending on usb 3 or usb 2  ) 

then after boot it hopely finds the drives , or install the drivers in windows ( they probaly get lost after reboot ) and unraid them there

or in case linux does find the drivers , you need to format them  

 

 

ps: limited experiance with raids  just trying to provide a possible solution  

Greets From Powerchaos

[Enten]

On 8/25/2018 at 8:26 AM, PowerChaos said:

hmm

so your drivers are not working to find your raid disk

so you use hardware raid controller ? or software raid ( windows 10 created raid ? ) 

 

i guess you are using the hardware raid controller

in that case , isnt there a option in the controller to unraid and re raid the hard disks ?

also i would never use raid 0 for a boot drive ... it mess up a lot of things ( raid 5 is better , and raid 1 is also good  ) in case something goes wrong ( like now  ) 

in case you do not mind of losing your files ofcourse

 

also make sure if you use raid 0 that the disks are connected to the right sata port ( port 1 and port 2 if the raid is created that way ) as else the raid 0 will not work ... that happends with splitting up files  )

 

else you could try easy2boot to do the windows install

it support driver injection and automatic windows install ( based on a ini file ) 

no idea how to configure it , but i know they allow to do that

 

if you still need files from that drive and you got a spare drive to copy the stuff to , then use a linux live iso , boot from it and copy it over from there ( if linux find the drives )

then you can unraid the drives and add a raid to it again so it is proper configured

 

please note , software raid is NOT the same as Hardware raid

if you used software raid and that is causing all the trouble then you can do the following

use a windows live cd ( windows PE ) and boot it from usb ( takes some time ,depending on usb 3 or usb 2  ) 

then after boot it hopely finds the drives , or install the drivers in windows ( they probaly get lost after reboot ) and unraid them there

or in case linux does find the drivers , you need to format them  

 

 

ps: limited experiance with raids  just trying to provide a possible solution  

Greets From Powerchaos

Thank you so much for your help. 

 

I believe this is a software win10 issue, because I did raid, unraid, ahci, and still no luck. 

 

I did go ahead and do the easy2boot flash drive. Looks like my issue was even DEEPER than I realized. Even E2B could not properly load the raid drives. 

 

I ended up switching to a new motherboard, and now am SO CLOSE to properly migrating my data back. Just missing the system reserved partition and hence cannot boot :'(

[PowerChaos]

Try to connect just a single drive direct to mobo 

 

and system partition get created On Windows install ( iT is to store Temp files )

 

if single drive works then your raid controller is broken