Crossblade Ranger: RAID Woes with Windows 7 32-Bit

[TheNerdBench]

Greetings all,

I thought I would share some insight on the Asus Crossblade Ranger motherboards when configuring RAID-1 as it has been a bit of a challenge!

While I do have the configuration working I am NOT impressed with the boot-up times but I will need to do a bit more research on that. Regardless here are the steps to ensure that RAID can be configured on these motherboards:

1) Download and extract AHCI/RAID drivers to a formatted USB Flash Drive (NTFS or FAT is fine)
2) Upgrade the BIOS (current version is 1002 as of 4-29-15) of the motherboard (this is a required step...trust me)
3) Configure the BIOS in the following manner:
Top SATA Chip set to RAID (make sure to connect the SATA Storage Devices to SATA Ports 1,2,3, or 4 only)
SATA Ports 5,6,7,8 set to IDE (mke sure to connect the SATA DVD Drive to SATA Ports 5,6,7, or 8 only)
4) Access the RAID Setup Utility by pressing CTRL R during the POST
5) Configure your RAID Array

NOTE-1: None of the USB 3.0 ports will be operational during the Windows 7 installation!
NOTE-2: You are limited to TWO USB 2.0 ports so pay special attention to steps 3 & 4!
6) Plug the mouse into a USB 2.0 port (you don't need a keyboard right now)
7) Plug the USB Flash Drive into a USB 2.0 port
😎 Power-up and install Windows as normal
9) The Windows 7 installer will not detect the RAID drivers so point the installer to use the drivers to the location in step 1
10) The Windows 7 installer should NOW see your RAID array
11) You can remove the USB Flash Drive and now plug your keyboard into a USB 2.0 port

Have fun-Brian

PS: I am using these boards in my Computer Hardware course that I teach...they are great looking boards and my students love them. Out of 20 boards I have no DOAs so take that Newegg reviewers with three DOA boards in a row!