win8 and amd sbxxx raid 5

Windows 8 doesn’t appear to recognize my amd raid 5 array. The disks
are seen as single disks. If I delete the raid 5 and create a RAID 0 or
RAID 1 array w8 recognizes the array. Raid 5 also worked under win7.
What up?

Is it hardware array or software array?

On 9/24/2011 2:23 PM, xxxxx@broadcom.com wrote:

Is it hardware array or software array?

Hardware array. AMD SBxxx onboard RAID-5 array. Thanks for responding.

SBxxx onboard arrays are software RAID. (not OS software RAID, but all RAID work is done in software).
It is very likely that W8 shipped with an AMD RAID driver that doesn’t support RAID5, i.e. doesn’t recognize the
RAID signature and considers disks as single disks. (this can also happen if you install an incorrect driver for
your motherboard)

“George M. Garner Jr.” wrote:

On 9/24/2011 2:23 PM, xxxxx@broadcom.com wrote:
> Is it hardware array or software array?
>

Hardware array. AMD SBxxx onboard RAID-5 array. Thanks for responding.


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Kind regards, Dejan (MSN support: xxxxx@alfasp.com)
http://www.alfasp.com
File system audit, security and encryption kits.

> It is very likely that W8 shipped with an AMD RAID driver that doesn’t support RAID5, i.e. doesn’t recognize the

RAID signature and considers disks as single disks. <

This would appear to be the case. I installed the w7 x64 AMD AHCI
compatible RAID driver from the motherboard manufacturer’s web site and
RAID 5 magically started to work.

One problem though, when I enable AHCI (instead of RAID) in the BIOS w8
crashes during boot. This is true both for the AHCI driver that ships
with W8 and the w7 driver from the manufacturer’s web site.

Where are we supposed to file bugs so this can be fixed?

“when I enable AHCI (instead of RAID) in the BIOS w8 crashes during boot”

MS overlooked this issue badly. Not as bad as 137GB fiasco in XP, but still bad. If you install the OS (Win7 or 8) when the controller is in legacy SATA mode, only the ATA driver will be loaded at boot. If you switch the controller to AHCI, the driver will not be loaded and you get a 7E bugcheck. There is a KB article for that.

>to AHCI

msahci.sys is a disaster.

It still hangs from time to time, even in Win7 SP1, blocking all disk IO for ~15 seconds, due to some race in it.

And the fixed version is unavailable for downloads (though exists) and the customer support service ignores all emails requesting it.


Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com