RAID/AHCI dual boot conflict?

ejohnh · Feb 9, 2024

Hello All, Having just upgraded my system with new CPU and Mobo, and got W11 up and running on a 120G SSD, I decided to use 2 250G SSds in RAID0 mode as my main system. I eventually got the Raid array set up and was able to see the two systems available at startup. The raid system booted okay but the original system wouldn't boot. Is it because I installed the initial W11 with the SATA in ACH1 mode? When I installed the raid system I included a raid driver during the install. Should I reinstall the original system and include a Raid driver during that installation?
Any advice would be most welcome
Thanks
John

Berton · Feb 9, 2024

I replied about a similar issue in another forum that I had with the AHCI/RAID setting in the BIOS when having 2 drives in the case at initial setup of Windows. With 2 drives the install chose the RAID and things worked fine until I took one drive out then it wouldn't boot, I had to reinstall Windows and it did so as AHCI, no problem afterward. A second drive could be connected or changed later with no effect on the booting.

Bottom line? One drive in the computer during install so as to avoid the possibility of RAID or intentionally set up as RAID. I'd use RAID 1 to have mirroring/redundancy, if one drive fails the other should be usable, I was recently given an older computer set up that way. RAID 0 is striping, data written across both drives, lose one and all data lost.

ejohnh · Feb 9, 2024

Berton said:
I replied about a similar issue in another forum that I had with the AHCI/RAID setting in the BIOS when having 2 drives in the case at initial setup of Windows. With 2 drives the install chose the RAID and things worked fine until I took one drive out then it wouldn't boot, I had to reinstall Windows and it did so as AHCI, no problem afterward. A second drive could be connected or changed later with no effect on the booting.

Bottom line? One drive in the computer during install so as to avoid the possibility of RAID or intentionally set up as RAID. I'd use RAID 1 to have mirroring/redundancy, if one drive fails the other should be usable, I was recently given an older computer set up that way. RAID 0 is striping, data written across both drives, lose one and all data lost.

It seems to be to do with the mobo settings where the SATA has to be set into RAID mode in order to configure the raid array. This sets ALL the SSD SATA ports into raid mode or raid ready mode. Just remebering that when doing a clean install of W11 the system(mobo?) asks for a driver. I'll experiment some more. It passes the time anyway :)
PS, I realise the danger of striping without a mirrror but I'm prepared to rely on my backup system to rescue me if I get into trouble. :)
Thanks for you reply
J