Vista won't boot when switched to RAID

B

bellecat1

New Member
Hi guys,

I've had a HDD running Vista without RAID enabled in the BIOS. Now I've put this HDD in to a RAID1 configuration. As expected the system does not boot BUT this could have been fixed if we were running XP but vista has a slightly different attitude unfortunately. When the system boots it just blue screens mid boot. Safe mode doesn't boot either.

So I've tried the vista repair option but that doesn't do much.
Is it worth disabling the RAID in the MB, booting, then maybe changing files/drivers?

Thanks
 
If you added that drive to a RAID array, it will not magically work. You will need to establish the RAID array first and then install Windows on it. Depending on what you have done already, you may have wiped your initial Vista install.

Have you worked with RAID arrays before?
 
Lol yeah yeah. I imaged the original drive to file. Created a mirror array with no OS installed. Then I removed drive1, and deployed the image to this drive. Now I've plugged drive1 back in to the machine and unplugged drive2 in case drive2 overrides drive 1. So atm the raid is degraded but I assure you the image deployed correctly and that there is an OS installed on that RAID. Like I said, I'm pretty sure the problem is because windows was setup using a particular storage controller, now its using the RAID controller.
 
Yes you must first create the RAID then load the OS on it. During the boot strap process the BIOS needs to know where to boot from, what device, ie the sata controller, the IDE controller, the RAID controller. Then the OS takes over from there.
 
I know mate....but I've created the RAID then deployed an image to that RAID...There is an OS on there 100%...It starts booting the OS....What I'm asking for is how to do an installation repair on Vista. It could be done on XP
 
bellecat1 said:
I know mate....but I've created the RAID then deployed an image to that RAID...There is an OS on there 100%...It starts booting the OS....What I'm asking for is how to do an installation repair on Vista. It could be done on XP
Click to expand...

OK, but in the image is the OS configured to boot from a RAID? You can't just block copy an OS from a stand alone drive and then expect it to just work on a different hardware configuration with Windows. It doesn't work that way.

You can boot into recovery mode off the installation DVD and there should be a GUI for that now in Vista...but I must confess I haven't used that feature in Vista yet.
 
bellecat1 said:
which option is that?
Click to expand...

Sorry to have missed you the other day. Just for your future reference, the "repair" function in Vista is really to do an in-place re-install/repair. There is no OS repair function like XP had. The Vista solution is essentially a reinstall with all your applications/data in place.

You can do a Startup Repair also. To do this, boot from your Vista Install disc and right after the language selection you should see a button called "Repair Your Computer." Then you need to select the OS install you want to repair and choose "Startup Repair" from the System Recovery Options menu.
 
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