nVidia raid5 boot disk on Windows 10 – FIX
Hardware
The Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 and other boards using the NVIDIA® GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset (and probably others too) are well known not to work properly with Windows 10.
Hardware ids causing the problem on my system… Yours may be the same or different
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03D6&SUBSYS_D0001458&REV_A2
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03D6&SUBSYS_D0001458
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03D6&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03D6&CC_0300
The problem
Windows 10 has now introduced a system of validating drivers, the nVidia nvraid drivers get tested mid boot. These fail for some reason (probably because they aren’t designed for windows 10), Windows disconnects the drive it is booting from. It bluescreens, sometimes corrupts the raid, reboots and loops.
The nvraid driver that comes with windows works, the one with the graphics package doesn’t but it is newer (so it automatically upgrades itself into oblivion)
I have a solution (which is way easier than any of the others I’ve seen)
What you need
Most importantly you need a backup of your system, or at least the things that matter. If windows breaks the raid and continues to write data to only one disk then you can get data corruption, loose files etc. I’ll assume you are installing on a new hard drive from hereon in or that you are properly backed up
Download Windows 10 1703 from the Microsoft website – I suspect 1709 works perfectly too as mine has now updated to this. Please post below if this doesn’t work
Download the nVidia drivers from the nVidia site – Download for the most up to date windows drivers for your card that you can, at the time of writing this was Windows 8 (It says you can’t get 8.1 or 10). Have a look in the Device manager if you aren’t sure what you have
7 Zip – You’ll probably want the 64bit version. Download link is at the top
and obviously be prepared for any other drivers for your system, although windows 10 is extremely good at finding things
Getting started
I’m going to assume you know how to install windows and have been battling with this for a while. If this is not the case then you need to take it to someone who knows their stuff… this is a slightly advanced method
Remove access to the internet
Windows will realise it needs drivers and updates, these will kill your system as it will install the nvraid drivers with the graphics driver and will leave the drive inaccessible. As a general rule it’s best to install a system with as much unplugged as possible and install things after anyway. Disconnect any network cables
Install Windows
If you’re on a USB or DVD it doesn’t matter – if you have a WiFi card in the computer it’ll ask to go on the internet. Say no at this point.
Go through all the motions until you have a working desktop. Reboot a couple of times and everything should seem to work… but the graphics are poor.
DO NOT LET IT ON THE INTERNET YET – if it downloads the display drivers then the nvraid driver that doesn’t work is packaged with the display driver. It wants to update to this because it is newer and the computer will not boot again
Install 7-Zip:
This should be straight forward as you have already downloaded it
The clever bit:
Decompress the nVidia package
Now we want to get the display drivers out of the nVidia driver package but NOT the other drivers.
Right click on the driver package and hover on the 7 zip part of the menu.
Click on Extract files…
Put them somewhere useful eg: C:\nVidia – make sure you can remember it for later on
Follow the onscreen instructions to decompress the archive
Open the location that you extracted them and DELETE setup.exe
I’ll say that again, DO NOT RUN IT – DELETE setup.exe
Install only the display drivers
Open device manager by right clicking on the start menu and clicking “Device Manager”
Under Display adapters you’ll find your driverless graphics card
Right click on it
Click Update Driver
Click “Browse for drivers on your computer”
Put in the address from earlier eg: C:\nVidia
Follow the instructions. It takes a while to install.
Finishing off
Reboot and set up the display, once it’s working you can delete the driver package from the computer if you want (I’ve left mine)
Reboot again after it’s all running just to be sure
Connect it to the internet
Let it do all of it’s updates (Press the windows key and type in Update, click “Check for Updates”). This can take a while
See if any device drivers are missing in Device Manager (If so then right click and try to do a driver update from the internet – this will find most things, if anything is left then reboot and try again after the other things have finished installing). This can take a while too
You should now be good to go!
Summary
Install windows 10 without internet access
Install 7-Zip
Decompress the nVidia installer
Delete the setup program and only install the video drivers through the windows system
Connect to the internet and finish off, then install all of the normal ‘rubbish’ that you like on your computer
Make a cup of tea or coffee – you have earned it! (And so have I)