[SOLVED] Gigabyte X870e Aorus Pro ICE - NVMe Raid issues

Hi all,

It’s been 6 years since I posted. Coincidentally it’s been 6 years since I last built a PC. My trusty 5800X will be passed on to my kids once my build is finally finished.

As per forum guidelines I used pcpartspicker.com to show you what I put together:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yjTsXR

Since building the rig I have updated the BIOS to version F3i (latest available from 19/12/2024)
After updating the BIOS I went in and checked that all peripherals were found correctly.

Both SN850X m.2 drives are found as well as the graphics card.

I’ve since updated the XMP profile, so the ram runs at its designated speed.

Next up I wanted to create my NVMe Raid array, I went into the SATA settings and turned the NVMe Raid setting to enabled.

After a quick boot and the obligatory mashing of the delete button I find myself back in the BIOS, this time around however the m.2 drives are nowhere to be found.

If I browse the NVMe settings it just lists no devices found. Also in the overview it marks both slots as empty. I’m dumbfounded as the what happened.

I don’t understand why the AMD Raid Xpert 2 tool isn’t available to me and there seems to be no information available about this issue.

Luckily for me Gigabyte has support… unfortunately they’re closed for the holidays so … ye… not really supportive right now.

I hope someone can help me out with this conundrum. I really thought NVMe Raids were easy after 6 years of progress, that’ll teach me :wink:

Wrote this post before the current update so I’ll just continue here

  • After searching in the bios on keyword “scan” XPert 2 Configuration became magically available
  • Deleted the two default single drive arrays in XPert 2 Configuration
  • Created a new 4TB RAID 1 (Mirror) Array with my two SN850X drives
  • Launched win11 installer USB

Next problem Win11 install automatically creates MBR partitions (max 2TB)

  • Press Shift+F10 in the installer
  • run diskpart
  • Select disk
  • Clean disk
  • Convert GPT
  • Repeat for each disk in your raid

So we have an array in BIOS, we have both disks available in win 11 installer, I already downloaded and unpacked the AMD Raid drivers onto the USB drive

The wizard comes to the screen where you need to select your partition to install the OS

This is the moment that I should do the following

  1. Install the AMD Bottom driver
  2. Install the AMD Controller driver
  3. Install the AMD Config driver

However after the install of the bottom driver, both 4TB disk partitions disappear and only the USB one remains

Another update on steps I undertook since the last time and their outcomes

  • plugged the usb stick in a 2.0 port instead of a 3.2
  • disabled secure boot
  • I renamed the autounattend.xml file that I had prepped

Now when entering the win11 install I have to manually select things like language, internationalization stuff and keyboard layout. Once that’s done I’ll get to the same disk selection screen showing me both nvme drives and the usb stick.

Once I load the bottom driver, I get redirected to the ‘accept and conditions’ page, after wich the drives disappear, but I can click on the ‘Load driver’ button

So I proceeded with the install of the controller and config driver. I still have two separate disks in my disk overview instead of one entry which is what I was hoping to find.

Third update
When changing the diskpartition from mbr to gpt the system actually destroys the raid config in the bios. This is why I couldn’t continue after I was using the attended install and finally was able to load all the raid drivers.

Fourth update
It seems that if I don’t use the autounattend.xml approach and load all the raid drivers it actually fixes the drive size and I don’t have to change it to gpt. I now have one unpartitioned drive of 4TB that I can select to install windows.

Here’s to hoping this will end my saga, it’s a rather long read so hopefully others can learn from my mistakes.

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