Intel Matrix RAID, presence breaks boot

[xayd]

Hi guys, first of all thanks for the great tools, I installed 10.8.5 from the App Store yesterday via your USB boot stick guide/tools and everything is running fine, with one exception...

hardware in question....

Intel DP67DE mobo, i5 2400.

My Windows install lives on an Intel Matrix RAID array. My OSX drive is a single drive on the port(s) for which that RAID functionality exists.

In the BIOS (v77), you have options for AHCI, RAID, and IDE, and it says in RAID mode AHCI is implied, which I can confirm by the fact that FreeBSD runs fine on a single drive on the RAID ports. I can set the ports to RAID, have a 3 drive RAID array for Windows, and install/boot FreeBSD from a 4th non-member single disk just fine.

OSX on the other hand does not do this, it can't find its boot device unless every port is set to AHCI with RAID disabled.

Is this just a driver issue or not possible to have RAID enabled?

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of other port options, my vid card is blocking my 5th and only non-RAID-capable port. It's also eSATA enabled so even if it weren't blocked, I'm not sure if it's bootable.

 

[RehabMan]

Hi guys, first of all thanks for the great tools, I installed 10.8.5 from the App Store yesterday via your USB boot stick guide/tools and everything is running fine, with one exception...

hardware in question....

Intel DP67DE mobo, i5 2400.

My Windows install lives on an Intel Matrix RAID array. My OSX drive is a single drive on the port(s) for which that RAID functionality exists.

In the BIOS (v77), you have options for AHCI, RAID, and IDE, and it says in RAID mode AHCI is implied, which I can confirm by the fact that FreeBSD runs fine on a single drive on the RAID ports. I can set the ports to RAID, have a 3 drive RAID array for Windows, and install/boot FreeBSD from a 4th non-member single disk just fine.

OSX on the other hand does not do this, it can't find its boot device unless every port is set to AHCI with RAID disabled.

Is this just a driver issue or not possible to have RAID enabled?

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of other port options, my vid card is blocking my 5th and only non-RAID-capable port. It's also eSATA enabled so even if it weren't blocked, I'm not sure if it's bootable.

I don't think that is going to work. Problem is OS X will not recognize your SATA device when it is in RAID mode.

If you wish to dual-boot that machine with Windows still using RAID, you'll need to install OS X onto a device connected to SATA ports that are not in RAID mode (eg. a recognized second SATA chipset on the motherboard, or an additional PCIe SATA card).

Of course, your other option is to install Windows without RAID. I assume you're using RAID0 and with today's SSDs there is little reason to use RAID0 on a boot disk.

There is an outside possibility that you could map the RAID SATA chip device-id to a recognized AHCI SATA device. That is, you would put the system into AHCI mode, boot into Linux to capture PCI device IDs ('lspci -nn') then use those IDs to build a DSDT patch and/or injector kext (codeless kext) that would cause OS X to load the normal AHCI drivers even though the SATA controller is in RAID mode. Requires some expert skills and could end up corrupting data if it doesn't go well, so you'd want to have a good backup.

 

[xayd]

I don't think that is going to work. Problem is OS X will not recognize your SATA device when it is in RAID mode.

If you wish to dual-boot that machine with Windows still using RAID, you'll need to install OS X onto a device connected to SATA ports that are not in RAID mode (eg. a recognized second SATA chipset on the motherboard, or an additional PCIe SATA card).

Of course, your other option is to install Windows without RAID. I assume you're using RAID0 and with today's SSDs there is little reason to use RAID0 on a boot disk.

There is an outside possibility that you could map the RAID SATA chip device-id to a recognized AHCI SATA device. That is, you would put the system into AHCI mode, boot into Linux to capture PCI device IDs ('lspci -nn') then use those IDs to build a DSDT patch and/or injector kext (codeless kext) that would cause OS X to load the normal AHCI drivers even though the SATA controller is in RAID mode. Requires some expert skills and could end up corrupting data if it doesn't go well, so you'd want to have a good backup.

I actually use RAID5 in windows, don't like losing data and don't trust drives.

I'm assuming FreeBSD works because they have (albeit limited) support for Matrix RAID, their driver can ID the array and member drives. It can therefore determine that one is a non-member disk that's available for use by the OS and act accordingly.

That's a good idea with LSPCI and a forced driver, I'll read up on that and see what I can figure out.

Thanks!

 

[RehabMan]

I actually use RAID5 in windows, don't like losing data and don't trust drives.

I don't trust drives either. It is a matter of *when* not *if* they will fail... I use nightly automatic backups. The problem with RAID is it doesn't guard against software error, human error, theft, or disaster, where backups can...

I'm assuming FreeBSD works because they have (albeit limited) support for Matrix RAID, their driver can ID the array and member drives. It can therefore determine that one is a non-member disk that's available for use by the OS and act accordingly.

Yes.

That's a good idea with LSPCI and a forced driver, I'll read up on that and see what I can figure out.

Good luck...