Gigabyte GA-F2A55-DS3 User Manual page 29

The BIOS Setup menus described in this section may differ from the exact settings for your motherboard.
The actual BIOS Setup menu options you will see shall depend on the motherboard you have and
the BIOS version.
C. Configuring a RAID array in RAID BIOS
Enter the RAID BIOS setup utility to configure a RAID array. After the POST memory test begins and before
the operating system boot begins, look for a message which says "Press <Ctrl-F> to enter RAID Option ROM
Utility". Press <Ctrl> + <F> to enter the RAID BIOS setup utility. To create a new array, press <2> to enter the
LD View/LD Define Menu window. To create an array, press <Ctrl+C> to access the LD Define Menu. In the
LD Define Menu, use the up or down arrow key to move to an item for further configuration. In the following
procedure, we'll create RAID 0 as an example.
Steps:
1. Under the RAID Mode section, press the <SPACE> key to select RAID 0.
2. Set the Stripe Block size. 64 KB is the default.
3. Under the Drives Assignments section, press the up or down arrow key to highlight a drive.
4. Press the <SPACE> key or <Y> to change the Assignment option to Y. This action adds the drive to the
disk array. The Total Drv section will show the number of disks assigned.
5. Press <Ctrl>+<Y> keys to save the information. Press <Ctrl>+<Y> to input the array name. If you do not input
the array name, the default array name will be used.
6. When the next message appears, press <Ctrl>+<Y> to clear the MBR or press other keys to ignore this option.
7. Press <Ctrl>+<Y> to set the capacity of the RAID array or press other keys to set the array to its maximum
capacity.
8. After the creation is complete, the screen will return to LD View Menu where you will see the newly-created
array.
9. Press <Esc> to return to Main Menu and press <Esc> again if you want to exit the RAID BIOS utility.
Making a SATA RAID/AHCI Driver Diskette
Before installing Windows XP, connect a USB floppy disk drive to your computer first because you need to install
the SATA RAID/AHCI driver from a floppy disk that contains the driver during the OS installation. To copy the
RAID/AHCI driver for Windows XP, copy all files in the \BootDrv\Hxp folder in the motherboard driver disk to
your floppy disk. To install Windows 8/7/Vista, you also need to install the SATA RAID/AHCI driver during the
OS installation. To copy the RAID/AHCI driver for Windows 8, copy the whole Hw8 folder under the BootDrv
folder in the motherboard driver disk to a USB flash drive.
Installing the SATA RAID/AHCI Driver and Operating System
A. Installing Windows XP
Restart your system to boot from the Windows XP setup disk and press <F6> as soon as you see the message
"Press F6 if you need to install a 3rd party SCSI or RAID driver." Insert the floppy disk containing the SATA
RAID/AHCI driver. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the driver that suits your operating system. After
the driver installation, you can proceed with the Windows XP installation.
B. Installing Windows 8/7/Vista
(The following instructions use Windows 8 as the example operating system.)
Restart your system to boot from the Windows 8 setup disk and perform standard OS installation steps. Select
Load Driver. Then browse to the USB flashdrive that contains the driver and select the location of the driver.
RAID driver for Windows 8 32-bit: Hw8\RAID\x86
RAID driver for Windows 8 64-bit: Hw8\RAID\x64
AHCI driver for Windows 8 32-bit: Hw8\AHCI\W8
AHCI driver for Windows 8 64-bit: Hw8\AHCI\W864A
After loading the driver, continue the OS installation.
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