4 minute boot times with SSD under Win7 and MSi P67A-GD65 MB

[Matt_Stevens]

Okay, screw me general "I'm building a PC" thread. I've hit a huge problem. Everything with this baby was fine until about two hours ago. Windows installed FAST. It blew my mind. Drivers were installing like lightning. Holy cow, it was amazing. SSD is for real.

I used the MSi driver CD for the MB drivers and ws going well, but upon one reboot in there it took four or five minutes and ever reboot since is the same.

My BIOS has AHCI enabled. Of course, I am not sure about what that means compared to a RAID. My SSD will not be in a raid, but i have two raids planned for this system. A mirror and a 0 (stipe) for editing of HD material.

I've got two Westerm Digital 1TB HDD's in the racks hooked up, but have nothing with them as of yet. I want to do a RAID mirror, but cannot figure out how since I see nothing in the BIOS for setting up a RAID of any kind. Also, under SATA 1-8 I do not see them listd (they are attached to SATA #'s 7 & 8)

One issue may (or may not) be this... Windows put the system reserved partition on one of the two Western Digitals. I am just seeing that now. Obviously that is not what I wanted, but it did it. I should have installed Windows without those drives hooked up. DAMMIT! So one of the two shows Unallocated and the other shows 100MB System Reserved and the rest Unallocated.

I'm not really sure what to do at this point, so I will sit back and wait for the advice of others far more knowledhgable than I.

UPDATE: I see a review that mentions some RAID information, but I am not quite sure I understand it all. Perhaps in reading this I need to switch the WD HDD's to #'s 5 & 6 for motherboard controlled RAID? But that doesn't have anything to do with what the heck is going on with my sloooow boot times.

Should I just unplug those drives and see what happens, despite Windows putting that 'System Reserved' partition on one?

System is an i7 3.4GHz on P67A-GD65 MB. 12GB Intel SSD. Two Western Digital black 1TB (32k cache) HDD's. LG DVD Rom. 8GB G.Skill RAM DDR3.

ADDITION: My BIOS is absolutely the latest.

 

[Anomaly1964]

I would undo the HDD and just boot with SSD and see what happens...(but I am FAR from an expert).

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Unhooked the WD's completely and the system would no longer boot properly. It would just state no boot device detected or something similar.

Also, NO DRIVE DETECTED is the first thing I saw on screen. The SSD was still hooked up, so I don't get that at all.

Plugging the WD's back, but this time into SATA ports 5 & 6, resulted in their showing up in the BIOS in more places, but still nowhere is RAID to be found.

I can now boot into Windows, but again, it says NO DRIVE DETECTED upon booting.

Booting took exactly three minutes, which is slow as a snail with zero programs installed

When I click in IE to get o nthe net, it is instantanious. So something with the install is the problem, I think.

I'm just despressed. This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid would happen if I built my own system again.

Maybe I should power down, remove the WD HDD's and install Windows from scratch on the SSD?

I might as well. It goes very fast. Well, it did the first time. Maybe when I am back here by then there will be some cool solutions posted.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: I'm on my Shuttle XPC now. I cannot understand why the Intel SSD will not be detected by the motherboard upon bootup, but if I go into the BIOS, it is there.

I also cannot understand why the system will not go to windows when the only drive hooked up is the SSD. Right now I am pulling the hair out of head.

This is why it has been over ten years since I built a system from scratch.

 

[Anomaly1964]

Unhooked the WD's completely and the system would no longer boot properly. It would just state no boot device detected or something similar.

Also, NO DRIVE DETECTED is the first thing I saw on screen. The SSD was still hooked up, so I don't get that at all.

Plugging the WD's back, but this time into SATA ports 5 & 6, resulted in their showing up in the BIOS in more places, but still nowhere is RAID to be found.

I can now boot into Windows, but again, it says NO DRIVE DETECTED upon booting.

Booting took exactly three minutes, which is slow as a snail with zero programs installed

When I click in IE to get o nthe net, it is instantanious. So something with the install is the problem, I think.

I'm just despressed. This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid would happen if I built my own system again.

Maybe I should power down, remove the WD HDD's and install Windows from scratch on the SSD?

I might as well. It goes very fast. Well, it did the first time. Maybe when I am back here by then there will be some cool solutions posted.

Thanks in advance.

First I feel your frustration, ask these guys here, I had TONS of questions pre and post build...

2nd, if it were me, I would do a clean install from the optical with just the ssd installed and see what happens...

That is just my NEWB advise based on what I have learned since being here...

On the NO DRIVE DETECTED, my bios STILL says that and my PC is running UBER fast. Not sure if that is an SSD thing or not...?

 

[Zap]

Maybe I should power down, remove the WD HDD's and install Windows from scratch on the SSD?

Yes. If you really, really want to run RAID, leave RAID enabled in BIOS but don't have anything physically hooked up other than the SSD and the optical drive. From Windows Setup, delete any existing partitions on the SSD and start over again.

BTW, which WD drives are you using? Some of them are not suitable for RAID operation. Read this article on TLER which says, "leads to drives being marked as unusable and significant performance degradation." Basically you have to be using a WD Raid Edition or VelociRaptor drive to get TLER for RAID operation.

Also, two of your SATA 6G ports are using the Marvell controller. Unless you are out of SATA ports, I'd recommend just using the built-in Intel controller and disabling the Marvell controller. That's probably what you are seeing as the machine POSTS, the Marvell controller reporting which drives are hooked up.

Right now I am pulling the hair out of head.

This is why it has been over ten years since I built a system from scratch.

Well, you know that you don't have to build your own, right? I don't care what anyone else here says. Not everyone should or needs to do their own work. Heck, I haven't done my own oil changes for my cars in well over a decade and no matter how much money I save, I never intend to ever again.

With that being said, the #1 thing that will help you in these instances is patience. Just know that however much time you are spending to make your new build perfect, there are thousands more computer enthusiasts out there that have just spent 10 times the amount of time you've spent in troubleshooting, tweaking and stability testing.

 

[Davidh373]

Ok, so you have windows installed on the RAID or SSD? A fresh install on the SSD and not running RAID would be my advice.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Not using RAID yet. Haven't been. No idea how to because the MB manual lists ZERO info on it.

Re-installed Win7 on the SSD with no other drives in here. The SSD on SATA port 1, the LG DVD drive to SATA 2. No issues.

First set of MB drivers installed fine.

LAN driver from the MSi CD installed fine.

Immedialtely Windows Update downloaded the drivers for the MSi GeForce GTX 460. Since they were likely the latest I said okay, just do it. And I did. No problems.

SSD reboots blazing fast.

Now... the remaining drivers on the MSi CD are what scare me because it is after one of them that I think my issues began. They are...

Under STORAGE, the Marvell 9128 SATA Driver and the JMicron JMB36X Driver.

Under OTHERS there is the Intel ME Driver and the Renesas USB3.0 Driver.

In terrified to install any of them. What the hell are they? Should I not install any of these?

As for the Western Digital hard Drvies...

ZAP, I think my day might really have just been ruined if I spent money on two hard drives that are useless. I bought two Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB. How the hell can a manufacturer basically so NO RAID and it shows nowhere on the website? I based my purchase upon the fact that the reviews for this drive are very very good. Really good.

I asbolutely must have a Mirrored RAID on my setup. My data is far too critical to risk losing. So basically, these drives cannot be RAID mirrored? :'(

 

[Weenoman]

Not using RAID yet. Haven't been. No idea how to because the MB manual lists ZERO info on it.

Re-installed Win7 on the SSD with no other drives in here. The SSD on SATA port 1, the LG DVD drive to SATA 2. No issues.

First set of MB drivers installed fine.

LAN driver from the MSi CD installed fine.

Immedialtely Windows Update downloaded the drivers for the MSi GeForce GTX 460. Since they were likely the latest I said okay, just do it. And I did. No problems.

SSD reboots blazing fast.

Now... the remaining drivers on the MSi CD are what scare me because it is after one of them that I think my issues began. They are...

Under STORAGE, the Marvell 9128 SATA Driver and the JMicron JMB36X Driver.

Under OTHERS there is the Intel ME Driver and the Renesas USB3.0 Driver.

In terrified to install any of them. What the hell are they? Should I not install any of these?

As for the Western Digital hard Drvies...

ZAP, I think my day might really have just been ruined if I spent money on two hard drives that are useless. I bought two Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB. How the hell can a manufacturer basically so NO RAID and it shows nowhere on the website? I based my purchase upon the fact that the reviews for this drive are very very good. Really good.

I asbolutely must have a Mirrored RAID on my setup. My data is far too critical to risk losing. So basically, these drives cannot be RAID mirrored? :'(

If you are heart broken and do not want to try to figure out your raid situation, you could just copy the files you want to back-up onto your other HDD whenever you want to back them up, manually. It just won't be an exact duplicate drive like you would see in a raid set-up, it won't be as fast etc. But you could still back up your files to both drives.

My macguyver solution.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

That is the last thing I want to do. Keeping track of everything is a bitch and one time I did try to do that and it bit me in the arse because i had a critical data fauilure and lost a huge amount of data.

I absolutely WANT to figure out the RAID situation, but in researching, so far i am reading a lot of bad word on Western Digital's newer drives and RAID. I never saw this before. I thought I did my homework.

I'll have to get more advice.

I'd be happy to return the drives, but they have been opened so I will get hit with a restocking fee. That will hurrt and make it harder to buy the drives I need. I am flat broke now from buying the parts for this system.

At present the new system is trying to download Windows SP1 for Win7. It has errored out many times. Up to 43% downloaded presently.

I'm just going to install Windows updates until the experts here can help me with my questions above.

 

[jterrell]

Marvell 9128 SATA Driver --- this is the driver the user above suggested you NOT use. 6 gb/s SATA.
JMicron JMB36X Driver --- Raid controller. Try this one first imho.

Intel ME Driver --- Management Engine. Install this.
Renesas USB3.0 Driver --- as stated usb 3.0 driver... install it.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Will do.

NewEgg took care of the hard drive situation. They will allow an exchange and with no re-stocking fee. Awesome on them. Now... what drives to get? That is the question.

 

[mfenn]

Woah now, let's not get too frustrated.

The reason that you weren't able to boot is that the "System Reserved" partition is the one that Windows actually uses for the very beginning of the boot process. Windows does have a nasty habit of putting this partition on the first drive that it sees, no matter which drive you selected for the system partition. The best way to work around this (as you discovered) is to simply leave all of your data drives unplugged during the initial install.

You definitely want to use the Intel SATA ports for everything. Don't touch the other ports unless you absolutely have to. You'll need to have the Intel ports set to RAID mode in order to create any arrays. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have all drives part of a RAID, it just gives you the ability to put drives in arrays.

As I posted in your other thread, don't install any drivers from MSI's website or CD. Go out to the actual manufacturer's websites (Intel, etc.) and get and necessary drivers from there.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Definitely frustrated, especially now reading I maybe should not use the MSi drivers. I am so confused.

Now, the good news is, the SSD is performing well. It is BLAZING fast right now and that is with all the MSi drivers installed, other than the Marvell 9128 SATA Driver. Maybe that is what caused the problem before??? Not sure, but I won't risk it and will leave it off.

Windows 7 is on there with most updates. I slapped on AVG, iTunes, VLC, Final Draft, Nero and a number of other programs and all installed with zero problems. So it does seem stable. I'll play some DVD's, Blu-Ray and HD video files in the morning and see where I am at.

The next items would be Outlook 2010 and Adobe CS5, but in order to install them I need to deactivate the installs on my Shuttle XPC (not sure about Office but that is a 100% yes for CS5). Doing that is kind of the point of no return. I had wanted to have my mirrored RAID up and running before the Big Two (as I am calling them), but the RAID has to wait for at least ten days. I have to return the WD hdd's and choose what hdd's to replace them.

The Samsung spinpoint I purchased is the same exact drive I have in my Shuttle. My intent is to wipe the Shuttle's Samsung and use two Samsungs in a RAID 0 (striping) but I am scared shipless about that seeing as I cannot find anything about RAIDs on this motherboard.

Also, I really need to find some kind of FAQ on helpful web page on installing RAID with MSi motherboards because so far I cannot find jack.

Much appreciation to everyone helping me out here.

 

[Davidh373]

Now, the good news is, the SSD is performing well. It is BLAZING fast right now and that is with all the MSi drivers installed, other than the Marvell 9128 SATA Driver. Maybe that is what caused the problem before??? Not sure, but I won't risk it and will leave it off.

Most likely that was it. Marvell is kinda poopy.

Also, I really need to find some kind of FAQ on helpful web page on installing RAID with MSi motherboards because so far I cannot find jack.

Should be in the bios.

 

[Anomaly1964]

Kinda off topic but WHAT is so great about RAID, it just makes multiple drives look like one big one right? Sounds like an 8-track to me...LOL! What happens if data spans across drives?

 

[Matt_Stevens]

To edit uncompressed HD I need a RAID 0 (striping). That's flat out 100% required, unfortunately. So that will be installed next week via two Samsung 500GB Spinpoints.

For my storage of the source files, I won't be able to risk having a failure between manual backups. The only way to get close to a guaranteed safety backup is with RAID 1 (mirror). It's saved me before. Twice. You just can't beat it. When I get more money I'll get 2 TB drives instead of just 1 TB, but for now 1 TB in a mirror will give me the ability to sleep at night.

Unfortunately, I am not seeing ANYTHING about RAID in the manual for my MB and the BIOS seems bare of RAID info. I'm so stumped it's nuts. And no doubt that this MB supports RAID. But I am not an expert so I likely just don't know the procedures involved.

 

[Athadeus]

Kinda off topic but WHAT is so great about RAID, it just makes multiple drives look like one big one right? Sounds like an 8-track to me...LOL! What happens if data spans across drives?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

RAID 0 (block-level striping without parity or mirroring) has no (or zero) redundancy. It provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Hence simple stripe sets are normally referred to as RAID 0. Any disk failure destroys the array, and the likelihood of failure increases with more disks in the array (at a minimum, catastrophic data loss is twice as likely compared to single drives without RAID). A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 volume, the data is broken into fragments called blocks. The number of blocks is dictated by the stripe size, which is a configuration parameter of the array. The blocks are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, increasing bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking, so any error is uncorrectable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss.
In RAID 1 (mirroring without parity or striping), data is written identically to multiple disks (a "mirrored set"). Although many implementations create sets of 2 disks, sets may contain 3 or more disks. Array provides fault tolerance from disk errors or failures and continues to operate as long as at least one drive in the mirrored set is functioning. With appropriate operating system support, there can be increased read performance, and only a minimal write performance reduction. Using RAID 1 with a separate controller for each disk is sometimes called duplexing.

 

[mnewsham]

Kinda off topic but WHAT is so great about RAID, it just makes multiple drives look like one big one right? Sounds like an 8-track to me...LOL! What happens if data spans across drives?

There are many different types of RAID

RAID 0 (in a 2 drive configuration) is where you have 1/2 of the data read/write to one (physical) drive and the other 1/2 read/write to another. This is called striping. This essentially cuts read and write times in 1/2 (but in practice it doesnt scale perfectly)

RAID 1 is mirroring where (in a 2 drive configuration) you have 1 whole block of data written to each HDD. This should perform as well as a regular single HDD setup you just have 2 drives both getting the data written to them. This is a redundant drive and allows one drive to fail while still keeping all of your data.

RAID 2 is bit-level striping with dedicated Hamming-code parity, a mouthful BUT is basically synchronizes all spindle rotations and data is striped so that each byte of data is on a different disk. Parity is calculated across corresponding bits on disks and stored on one or more parity disks.

RAID 3 is byte-level striping with dedicated parity which is RAID 2 but the parity is on a dedicated disk.

RAID 4 is block-level striping with dedicated parity this distributes the data across the drives and has a dedicated parity disk. The parity disk is usually your bottle neck.

RAID 5 is block-level striping with distributed parity, which is RAID 4 but with distributed parity, and requires all drives but one to be present to operate the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. Any subsequent drives lost will result in data loss.

RAID 6 is block-level striping with double distributed parity, this is RAID 5 but with double distributed parity, allowing up to TWO physical drives to fail. Double parity gives time to rebuild the array without the data being at risk if a single additional drive fails before the rebuild is complete.


You can also (if your controller supports it) set two types of RAID this is called nested RAID. RAID 60 for example is RAID 6 and RAID 0 on a single array. Allowing speed and drive failures.

That's about all i can think of at the moment

 

[Matt_Stevens]

I'm hoping my setup will allow me to set up both a RAID 0 for my Samsung drives and a RAID 1 for the other two drives, whatever they may end up being.

 

[mnewsham]

I'm hoping my setup will allow me to set up both a RAID 0 for my Samsung drives and a RAID 1 for the other two drives, whatever they may end up being.

If you have 4 drives i guess you could do RAID 10

 

[Matt_Stevens]

But if I understand correctly, that won't work for me as the striped set will have different data than the mirrored set. My raid 0 set will be a scratch disk. The mirrored hdd's will have the original unedited 2k scans of the 8mm and 16mm film, etc.

I'm so confused on what to do!

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Did additional testing the system and it is still a-ok. I can't install the Samsungs yet because one of those drives is my OS drive in the Shuttle and I have to edit some sound this weekend. Once finished, it will be RAID 0 time, but I still have not a clue how to do it.

 

[Anomaly1964]

Well at least your main rig is running well...

Imagine how I felt when I FINALLY had mine built and then wake up to "Sandy Bridge Chipset Issue"

OMG I was pissed!

But then, taking everything apart, reinstalling new MB, even redoing HS and fan, took about 30 mins tops...

So obviously the more you do this, the easier it gets...

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Absolutely. If I had been doing it once a year like I used to it would not have been an issue. But it's been a decade + and because of that, I am behind the times.

The RAID thing is astoundingly impossible to understand and there is zero documentation on how to do it. Why? I don't get it.

 

[Anomaly1964]

Absolutely. If I had been doing it once a year like I used to it would not have been an issue. But it's been a decade + and because of that, I am behind the times.

The RAID thing is astoundingly impossible to understand and there is zero documentation on how to do it. Why? I don't get it.

Yeah, I have no desire to touch that beast...