1x m.2 NVMe boot drive, 6 x 2tb hdd for raid

[diesllc]

I am attempting to install windows 10 to ONE crucial mx500 m.2 drive on slot m.2_1 on my Asus Prime x470-pro motherboard. In the process of doing so, I am trying to setup a RAID10 with my 6 sata ports for storage. I have followed every post I could find on this subject, and have been unable to successfully install windows 10 unless I put sata > AHCI mode, in which case, I'm unable to setup the RAID. I have tried with NVMe RAID > Enabled as well as Disabled. When enabled, I try to load the amd drivers for raid during windows installation, putting the first one, bottom, in, then rcraid the second time, but none of my drives ever show up.

After successfully installing Windows 10 to the m.2 while in SATA > AHCI, I've attempted to then reboot from windows, change to SATA > RAID, at which time, in the boot section of the bios, the windows boot manager with the m.2 drive listed disappears. I still have an option called "windows boot manager", and also an option that specifies the crucial drive, but when trying to boot with either of those, I get the "no operating system found" error message. Rebooting and returning SATA to the AHCI option returns the ability to boot, along with the windows boot manager m.2 option that actually boots the system.

I've attempted the whole CSM > Disabled options I came across, with no success.

Any suggestions on how to configure these bios settings in order to have a non-raid bootable M.2 drive, along with RAID10 set of 6 hard disk drives? I've run out of options and suggestions and thoughts on how to accomplish this mission. Thank you in advance for any insight and suggestions that may assist me in getting this done!


Ray

PS.... When setting up the raid10, even with nvme raid mode disabled, the crucial m.2 drive shows up anyway in the raid configuration utility. I have done nothing with the drive, I've tried putting it as a VOLUME in the raid configuration utility. No matter what I do, I'm unable to find the m.2 drive to install windows on, or, to boot windows from.

[RedSector73]

Here is the procedure for install of windows on NVMe drive.

1 - Make sure you unplug all SATA and USB drives, the M.2 drive has to be the only drive installed.
2 - Go into the bios, under the boot tab there is an option for CSM, make sure it is disabled.
3 - Click on secure boot option below and make sure it is set to other OS, Not windows UEFI.
4 - Click on key management and clear secure boot keys.
5 - Insert a USB memory stick with a UEFI bootable ISO of Windows 10 on it.
6 - Press F10 to save, exit and reboot.
7 - Windows will now start installing to your NVME drive as it has its own NVME driver built in.
8 - When the PC reboots hit F2 to go back into the BIOS, you will see under boot priority that Windows boot manager now lists your NVME drive.
9 - Click on secure boot again but now set it to Windows UEFI mode.
10 - Click on key management and install default secure boot keys
11 - Press F10 to save and exit and Windows will finish the installation.

Then you would set up RAID from Windows, for your HDD array using AMD Raid Utility I would suggest (not done RAID anything for years now and it was all Intel).

[diesllc]

Here is the procedure for install of windows on NVMe drive.
Then you would set up RAID from Windows, for your HDD array using AMD Raid Utility I would suggest (not done RAID anything for years now and it was all Intel).

Thank you for the reply, and the instructions. I have windows on my NVMe drive already, and as long as I don't change SATA > AHCI to SATA > RAID it boots fine. I can see the HDDs in the disk manager they're just not initialized or anything in windows. I will try as you suggested and install I would assume RaidXpert2 in order to setup RAID in my windows environment instead of in the bios and see how that works. I'll make sure and do daily backups until I know it's stable.

[WhoSaidThat]

Thank you for the reply, and the instructions. I have windows on my NVMe drive already, and as long as I don't change SATA > AHCI to SATA > RAID it boots fine. I can see the HDDs in the disk manager they're just not initialized or anything in windows. I will try as you suggested and install I would assume RaidXpert2 in order to setup RAID in my windows environment instead of in the bios and see how that works. I'll make sure and do daily backups until I know it's stable.

In addition to the above suggestions, I'd recommend you check out Windows' software RAID, Storage Spaces, although to meet your requirements, it would be more like RAID 5 than RAID 10. If you need to add more drives as some point, Storage Spaces will allow you to do that. It's also much easier to set up than AMD RAID - you can't use it for a boot drive though.

I have used AMD RAID to create a JBOD from two NVMe's for my boot drive but found that it added 20 to 25 secs to my boot time, which I found unacceptable - YMMV. I ended up using a single NVMe to boot off, and two other NVMe's in a Windows Storage Space.

One warning: I'm not sure if MS has yet fixed a recent bug with Storage Spaces (...but it hasn't affected my system).