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OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

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  • OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

    Hello,
    I just lost an entire post so I will make this one short. I can provide specs and details of what I have tried so far.
    Just got an RMA back from Asrock on an OC formula board. This is the first time I have attempted to install an OS.
    The BIOS recognizes the Revo drive and it is selected as a boot drive. When I start the install routine, everything goes as it should until coming to the part about where to put the installation. Then of course there are no hard drives listed. I go ahead and try to load drivers for the Revo and go to my thumb drive where I have the latest drivers. There are no drivers listed, and it says that there are no digitally signed drivers.

    I have found about 20 different solutions for this prevalent problem and have tried almost all of them. Of course I am reaching a point of frustration and am wondering if there is a specific solution for my motherboard.

    I have heard of a trick where one can utilize the 32 bit drivers first then go back with the 64 bit, but OCZ has put both the 32 and 64 bit in the same package and I have heard that they must be separate.

    Please let me know if anyone has any experience or information that may help. I am about to send the motherboard back again for another RMA.

    Also for some reason the BIOS is not recognizing my Samsung F3 1TB hard disc drive and it is not an option for installing when it is plugged in during WIN 7 installation. I have tried to install to REVO drive without the HD installed any number of times. I have also attempted to use this Samsung drive for installation when the REVO is uninstalled. Again, not listed as an option for WIN7 install or recognized in BIOS.

    HOWEVER, it is listed as a place to search for drivers for the REVO drive as a drive X:BOOT. Under this drive I can see the old files including an older WIN7 installation.

  • #2
    Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

    Not all motherboards will work with the Revo Series of products. At one point OCZ had a supported motherboard list but I don't know if OCZ keeps it updated. In some boards you have to use a specific PCIe slot even.

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    • #3
      Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

      I count four ASRock boards that are "OC Formula" models in ASRock's current offerings, you need to narrow that down a bit.

      Not all boards, or I should say their UEFI/BIOS, allow booting from PCI cards. An older Intel made socket 775 board I had could boot from PCI/PCI-E cards, but none of the others I've used could do that. My guess would be no more than 20% of mother boards can boot from a PCI card.

      This is a screenshot from the main PC information screen of the HWiNFO64 program, showing BIOS details of my ASRock Z87 Ex 6 board. Note the yellow highlighted entry:

      Click image for larger version

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      The program I ran that produced the output above is a Windows program, although there is a DOS version that you might be able to run from a DOS installation on a USB flash drive.

      IMO, I doubt your ASRock board's UEFI/BIOS allows booting from a PCI card. This aspect may or may not be the compatibility issue that was mentioned in post #2 above. Why it appears in the Boot list is a good question. IMO, your problem cannot be solved by an RMA, the board is not defective.

      Of course, booting from a PCI card is not the same thing as installing an OS on a PCI card drive. Regardless, isn't there a check box on the Win 7 driver installation screen that allows "incompatible..." drivers to be listed? I can't recall the terminology. Are the Revo drivers the usual .sys, .inf, and .cat files?

      Your Samsung HDD may not be recognized if it is connected to the secondary SATA controller, such as Marvell or ASMedia, used on many boards. The Win 7 installer may not list it because it recognizes an OS installation currently on that drive, with no unused partition to install on. Are you installing Win 7 with the SATA mode set to AHCI or RAID?

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      • #4
        Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

        Is this the technique you mentioned for driver installation? Seems to work for some people:

        1. Download both the x86 and x64 drivers from OCZ, unzip them, and copy both the x86 folder and x64 folder onto a flash drive.
        2. Restart your computer, boot from the Windows install DVD, and begin the installation process (if you have an x86 option and an x64 option, make sure you select the x64 option, assuming that you want to install 64-bit Windows).
        3. During the install process, when you get to the drive selection screen, click on "Load Drivers". Click on the "Browse" button, and navigate to the flash drive where you stored the drivers. Select the x86 folder, and load the x86 driver that comes up.
        4. At this point you should be returned to the drive selection screen, and the RevoDrive should appear as an option. Select the RevoDrive and click on "drive options". Delete any partitions on the drive, format it, and create a new partition. (I'm not sure if this step is actually necessary, but it was suggested in the post that I was using, and I did it myself, so I don't know whether or not it would work without this step)
        5. Click on "Load Drivers" again, and this time navigate to the x64 folder. Install the x64 driver (there should actually be three files that show up in that folder). Install the two drivers in that list that say "(x64)" after them. If you still get the "unsigned drivers" error, don't worry... I got that error message at this stage also, but the x64 install still worked.
        6. Close the "load drivers" screen to return to the drive selection screen. Select the RevoDrive, and continue with the Windows installation.

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        • #5
          Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

          Originally posted by parsec View Post
          Is this the technique you mentioned for driver installation? Seems to work for some people:

          1. Download both the x86 and x64 drivers from OCZ, unzip them, and copy both the x86 folder and x64 folder onto a flash drive.
          2. Restart your computer, boot from the Windows install DVD, and begin the installation process (if you have an x86 option and an x64 option, make sure you select the x64 option, assuming that you want to install 64-bit Windows).
          3. During the install process, when you get to the drive selection screen, click on "Load Drivers". Click on the "Browse" button, and navigate to the flash drive where you stored the drivers. Select the x86 folder, and load the x86 driver that comes up.
          4. At this point you should be returned to the drive selection screen, and the RevoDrive should appear as an option. Select the RevoDrive and click on "drive options". Delete any partitions on the drive, format it, and create a new partition. (I'm not sure if this step is actually necessary, but it was suggested in the post that I was using, and I did it myself, so I don't know whether or not it would work without this step)
          5. Click on "Load Drivers" again, and this time navigate to the x64 folder. Install the x64 driver (there should actually be three files that show up in that folder). Install the two drivers in that list that say "(x64)" after them. If you still get the "unsigned drivers" error, don't worry... I got that error message at this stage also, but the x64 install still worked.
          6. Close the "load drivers" screen to return to the drive selection screen. Select the RevoDrive, and continue with the Windows installation.


          Thank you Parsec, this is one of the methods I have tried. Unfortunately as I noted before, OCZ has now put the X86 and X64 drivers in the same file. Regardless, the inf files are not listed when I navigate to the folder on the thumb drive. This includes allowing the showing of drivers incompatible with this hardware. In addition, I have also tried both the 32 bit and 64 bit drivers for the other revo drives.

          I have tried to install in AHCI mode and RAID. I have tried to install with the Samsung drive in the Marvell ports and in the Intel ones. I have tried to install with the Marvell ports activated and not. I have removed all drives from the system and USB devices except for the Bluray optical drive I am using to read the OS media from.

          The one thing I have not tried is to install in IDE mode, but I didn't really see the point of that. However if it gets me through the installation I know how to do the registry hack to get it back to AHCI.

          My specs:
          Asrock Z77 OC Formula
          Core i5 3570K, stock speeds
          32 GB Mushkin ram @ 1333 speeds
          NZXT Hale 90 750W Gold PSU
          msi HD 6950
          2 optical SATA drives
          Samsung F3 1TB hard drive


          Thank you for your responses. I would not suspect the board except for the fact that the BIOS does not recognize my hard drive, which is pretty inexcusable to me. I do understand some difficulty with the install on the Revo drive, but there should be no reason the board can't install to a standard hard drive. I am thinking of creating a raw partition on the drive to see if the BIOS will like that better.

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          • #6
            Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

            I understand now about the HDD not seen in the BIOS. Did you try clearing the CMOS/BIOS after removing the Revo? Was the HDD not seen in the Storage Configuration screen, and System Browser?

            I recently Secure Erased several SSDs with a bootable USB drive using Parted Magic, and when that is complete there is nothing on the SSDs. I must say this was on my ASR Z87 board, but when I restarted the PC to boot into Windows, I went into the UEFI/BIOS to check the SSDs. They were all detected fine, in both Storage Config. and System Browser.

            I formatted the SSDs in Windows, and set up the PC to install Windows on one of those SSDs. Started the installation and no drives were found. I had to install the "F6" driver before the SSD was seen. That may be as the SATA mode was RAID, and I was not installing to a RAID volume. My point is you could try to install the F6 IRST driver for your HDD, although that should not be necessary. I would hate to install in IDE mode, even though the fix for AHCI/RAID works.

            Random thoughts, you have PCI-E 3.0 support with your CPU, and the speed setting is likely Auto by default. Try setting PCI-E speed to Gen 2.

            Just figured out I downloaded the wrong Revo driver file earlier, I have the right one now. When unzipped, there are two folders, i386 and amd64, which contain the 32bit and 64 bit driver files, respectively. Only three files in each folder, with identical names Windows installer programs in the main folder too, but you should be able to copy the three files in the amd64 folder to the root folder of the USB drive, and that should be found by Windows. Those files are digitally signed too. Or have you tried that?

            Click image for larger version

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            • #7
              Re: OCZ REvo drive 3 and OC Formula

              Oddly enough, I was able to install WIN 8.1 onto the Revo drive, and the drivers show up fine when I use the 8.1 install routine. However that has brought on a whole list of problems, too many to go into ATM.

              Its buggy as hell and causes me no end of troubles but at least I can use my Revo drive now...
              Will buy a real SSD next opportunity I have.

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