Full system specs follow. All of this is brand new out of the box yesterday.
Asrock x570 Taichi with Bios updated to 3.80 2 x 32 GB G.Skill RAM, using detected XMP 2.0 profile, DDR4-3600 16-22-22-42 1.45V which exactly matches the RAM specsTwo Samsung 1 TB 980PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 drivesRyzen 7 3700X, no overclock, all the bios settings at "Auto". Bios says it's currently running 8 cores at 3651 Mhz, 38C/100FIn the BIOS under "Boot", CSM is Disabled
BIOS "Storage Configuration" has SATA controllers in RAID mode, but I don't have any SATA devices. The "Storage Device(s) List" there is blank.
NVMe RAID mode is Enabled under "Advanced\AMD PBS"
Under "Advanced\AMD CBS" everything is set to defaults, mostly "Auto". IOMMU is Disabled.
In the Advanced\RAIDXpert2 Configuration Utility:
Controller Information has a lot of details. I'm looking at Controller 0:AMD-RAID 00:01:00:00 VID 0x44D DID 0xA80AIt shows Controller Physical Disk Count: 1, Total Physical Disk Count: 2, Array Count: 1, UEFI Driver Version 9.2.0-00127, Firmware Build Time 07/05/2019 13:37:01. Controller 1 is the same, one controller disk, 2 total physical disk, etc. and the last two controllers have no disks. Under Array Management, Manage Array Properties it shows one array, "Array 1, RAID0, 1.9 TB, Normal". The Array Properties also mention the Cache Tag Size of 256KB, "No Cache" for both Read Cache Policy and Write Cache Policy.Viewing the Associated Physical Disks, it shows
Physical Disk 0:1:0 NVMe Gen4 x4, 1.0 TB, OnlinePhysical Disk 1:1:0, NVMe Gen4 x4, 1.0 TB, OnlineIf I dig down to look at the physical disk properties they look correct, Used Space is the full 1.0 TB, they are both associated with the array and not hot spares.
So that's the hardware and BIOS config...
Windows Install
I save changes & exit from the BIOS, and boot Windows from USB. I created this USB yesterday using the Microsoft MediaCreationTool20H2.exe. My license key is for Windows 10 Professional.
I have also installed the AMD RAID drivers referred to above on a second USB.
Windows comes up, I start the install. "Setup is starting".
I enter the Windows registration key, accept license terms, and choose "Custom: Install Windows only", not Upgrade.
It asks: Where do you want to install Windows?
The list below shows:
Drive 0 Partition 1 931.5 GB, 0.0 MB free, PrimaryDrive 0 Unallocated Space 12 MBDrive 1 Partition 1 931.5 GB 0.0 MB free, PrimaryDrive 1 Unallocated Space 12 MBSo Windows sees the raw disks, not the RAID. This is expected since I haven't loaded the drivers yet.
I click "Load Driver". It says "No signed device drivers were found ..."
I click Browse and go to the USB drive with the AMD RAID drivers.
This is where the first problem with the instructions shows up: Which drivers? NVMe_CC or NVMNe_
, down to WIN10/x64/NVMe_CC/rcbottom and click OK.
This is the second minor problem with the instructions: Windows now says "Select the driver to install" and shows TWO IDENTICAL LINES:
AMD-RAID Bottom Device (D:\WIN10\x64\NVMe_CC\rcbottom\rcbottom.inf")
However, from reading AMD NVMe/SATA RAID Quick Start Guide for Windows® Operating Systems I've seen that this can happen when the system has multiple controllers, so no problem - I choose the first one.
Now I'm back to "Where do you want to install Windows?" but there are no drives shown. Progress!
Again I click Install driver, this time browse to NVMe_CC\rcraid
and install the AMD-RAID Controller [storport] (D:Win10\x64\NVMe_CC\rcraid\rcraid.inf)
Now I'm back at "Where do you want to install Windows?" and it shows
Drive 0 Unallocated Space 1862.0 GB / Free space 1862.0 GB
Woohoo! It's working. But I still haven't installed rccfg, so I browse down to and install
AMD-RAID Config Device (D:WIN10\x64\NVMe_CC\rccfg\rccfg.inf")
With all three drivers installed I'm back at "Where do you want to install Windows?" and it still shows the same Drive 0 Unallocated 1862.0 GB as before.
I select that and hit Next.
Windows now begins the installation.
Fingers crossed!