Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3HP Data Sheet

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Enter the Intel

®

 legacy RAID BIOS setup utility to configure a RAID array. Skip this step and proceed with the 

installation of Windows operating system for a non-RAID configuration.

Steps:

1.  After the POST memory test begins and before the operating system boot begins, look for a message which 

says "Press <Ctrl-I> to enter Configuration Utility". Press <Ctrl> + <I> to enter the RAID Configuration Utility.

2.  After you press <Ctrl> + <I>, the MAIN MENU screen will appear. If you want to create a RAID array, select 

Create RAID Volume in MAIN MENU and press <Enter>.

3.  After entering the CREATE VOLUME MENU screen, enter a volume name with 1~16 letters (letters cannot 

be special characters) under the Name item and press <Enter>. Then, select a RAID level. RAID levels 

supported include RAID 0, RAID 1, Recovery, RAID 10, and RAID 5 (the selections available depend on the 

number of the hard drives being installed). Press <Enter> to proceed.

4.  Under Disks item, select the hard drives to be included in the RAID array. If only two hard drives are installed, 

they will be automatically assigned to the array. Set the stripe block size if necessary. The stripe block size 

can be set from 4 KB to 128 KB. Once you have selected the stripe block size, press <Enter>.

5.  Enter the array capacity and press <Enter>. Finally press <Enter> on the Create Volume item to begin 

creating the RAID array. When prompted to confirm whether to create this volume, press <Y> to confirm or 

<N> to cancel.

6.  When completed, you can see detailed information about the RAID array in the DISK/VOLUME INFORMATION 

section, including the RAID level, stripe block size, array name, and array capacity, etc. To exit the RAID 

BIOS utility, press <Esc> or select 6. Exit in MAIN MENU.

With the correct BIOS settings, you are ready to install the operating system.

As Windows 7 already include Intel SATA RAID/AHCI driver, you do not need to install separate RAID/AHCI 

driver during the Windows installation process. After the operating system is installed, we recommend that you 

install all required drivers from the motherboard driver disk using "Xpress Install" to ensure system performance 

and compatibility. To install Windows 8.1/8, refer to the steps below: Steps:

1.  Copy the IRST folder under BootDrv in the driver disk to your USB thumb drive.

2.  Boot from the Windows 8.1/8 setup disk and perform standard OS installation steps. When the screen 

requesting you to load the driver appears, select Browse.

3.  Insert the USB thumb drive and then browse to the location of the driver. The locations of the drivers are 

as follows: 

Windows 32-bit: \iRST\32Bit 

Windows 64-bit: \iRST\64Bit

4.  When a screen as shown, select Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA RAID 

Controller and click Next to load the driver and continue the OS installation.