Motherboards Asus Sabertooth X58 SATA windows 7 problem

I recently bought a Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard, and am trying to install windows 7 64bit for the first time. there are 8 SATA ports on the motherboard, 6 3GB/s ports which i plan on using in RAID 5 as my storage array, and 2 6GB/s ports which i plan on using in RAID 1 as my OS install. i've got 8 total drives and have configured (i'm pretty sure) all of the settings correctly in the BIOS.

i got the MB to recognize all of the drives in the BIOS, and to correctly RAID them all in the configurations mentioned above. my CD drive is also SATA, so i had to get a PCI card to give me more SATA ports to use for the optical drive. the BIOS will recognize every SATA device i have connected, and i can even get the windows 7 DVD to start the installation, right up until where it asks me to select a disk where i want to install the OS. it doesnt have any drives listed, and so far i've tried DLing and installing (via floppy over USB) every SATA drive listed on the ASUS website, but each time it says it fails or cannot find any matching hardware.

i'm at the end of my rope as far as troubleshooting issues... please help?

 

I would try removing all the HDDs you dont need connected at that point ( storage array ) and plug the optical drive directly into the mobo, just for the installation procedure.

it may also be that the installation doesnt like being put onto 2 HDDs that are in raid1- might be worth trying to just install the OS onto a single HDD for the time being and then figure out transferring it onto a couple drives in raid later..

Make sure all the drives are set for AHCI, otherwise, pass..

 

I agree with Niel.

Remove your RAID 5 array completely and have just the RAID 1 on there. Remove the PCI card and plug the optical drive into the normal ICH10R SATA ports - set these to IDE mode for now and leave the Marvell controller set to RAID.

Get the RAID drivers for the Marvell SATA 6Gbps controller and then try it - try downloading the latest ones from the Marvell website as well if that fails.

If that works make sure you set the boot priority to the RAID 1 array after you setup the RAID 5 in the BIOS

 

I read above mentioned reply for this windows 7 problem on asus motherboard. I had similar problem. Then i read this LINK. It helps me and in result, i found useful information for installing windows 7 on Asus Sabertooth X58 board. It describe the sata drive connectivity very well.