Intel released an update to its Matrix Storage Manager software just the other day, which among other things, enables TRIM on SSD drives connected to a controller in RAID mode. In the past, you could not utilize TRIM on any SSD connected to a controller with RAID enabled, even though the drives were not part of an actual array. Now, if you are running Windows 7 (and Server 2008, IIRC), you can have RAID arrays alongside your SSDs and enjoy TRIM support.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that you can use TRIM on a RAID array of SSDs. That technology is still (hopefully) in the pipe.

Also, in this release, Intel has deprecated the “Matrix Storage Manager” moniker and replaced it with “Rapid Storage Technology” or RST.  Going forward, their RAID driver and software package will be named as such.

Updates to RAIDFix enabling support of this new version are forthcoming.

If you want to grab the new drivers, head this way.

Dear Seagate,

What a love-hate relationship we have had. It has been 10 years, and while I have enjoyed much of it, I have suffered enough heartbreak. I think it is finally time to say goodbye.

Drive after drive has died on me (5 of them to be exact). Your firmware release to fix spontaneous data corruption had left me stranded in a sea of data with nothing but a brick to keep me afloat. Your RMA policy…well, it is highway robbery at best.

This last drive failure was the final straw.

There is no reason that a drive, a Barracuda hardly a year old, should fail in the way it did. If this is your flagship product, you have a lot of self improvement ahead of you. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to mess around with Maxtor on the side – you know, they never did have the best reputation for quality…

After your complete failure to maintain your fidelity my RAID1 relationship, I am tossing you aside.

Perhaps we will run into each other some time in the future. By that point, I will likely be wildly writing bits to a sleek Western Digital Black drive. Or, you may find me cavorting around with a shiny new SSD. If we meet again, let’s promise to keep it civil.

Anyways, I am rambling now. This is becoming a touch awkward.

Goodbye forever Seagate!

If you have not been by the site recently, I have updated a few my applications this week, and I have added a pair of new apps as well.

The newcomers include AudioX and RAIDFix.

AudioX is a labor of love several years in the works. A process born in batch files, migrated to Perl, and eventually rewritten in C#, AudioX converts songs between audio formats including FLAC, APE, AAC, MP3, and WAV. I really needed an application to convert my APE audio to FLAC for archival, and to compress my FLAC audio to AAC format for my iPod and MP3 format for my car. AudioX does this for me, managing tags and album art, all while taking advantage of PCs with multiple cores. It’s a great app, give it a try!

RAIDFix is an application I wrote to help the countless people that visit my site looking for a way to enable RAID on their Intel ICH-based Windows PC after they have installed Windows with RAID disabled. I have published walkthroughs on how to accomplish this, but RAIDFix makes it extremely simple. Patching your computer to allow you to enable RAID in the BIOS is now one-click away.

Additionally, Suction received updates to allow the user to specify the text they want used when renaming duplicate files as well as the ability to specify whether this text is prepended or appended to the file name.

MailBin had a bit of work done on the back-end, in order to do away with the flat configuration file used by the program. Instead, MailBin now uses Windows’ standard user config files like the rest of my applications.

All of the applications listed above now take advantage of my new web-based update system. The programs will check this web site to see if there is an update version of the application automatically, alerting you if a new release has been published.

Yay for software!

Bypass this article and fix your Intel RAID Drivers immediately using RAIDFix

I have three pieces of information to share with those of you looking to enable RAID on your Windows PC after having installed Windows without RAID enabled in your BIOS settings. Now that you have rebooted past a handful of blue screens and Googled to find some help, I am here to tell you that you have come to the right place.

I have written on this topic twice before, once when I first figured out how to fix this problem, and again when the drivers had been updated by Intel. Once again there are driver updates, so I wanted to provide you the appropriate registry file as well as the steps required to enable RAID on your system.

But first, I wanted to mention an extremely easy and fast solution.  After studying the problem for some time, I have put together an application named RAIDFix which installs the proper registry keys and drivers to get your Intel RAID up and running in seconds.  As I pointed out in the large link above, fix your RAID issues immediately by clicking here.

If you prefer to fix the problem manually, read on.

Method #2 – The Long, but Tried and True Process

1) Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager v8.9.0.1023 installer (Dated 7/17/2009) from Intel.

2) Open a command prompt on your machine and navigate to the folder where you saved the IMSM software in step 1.

3) Type “iata89enu.exe -a -p c:\iastor” and press Enter – this will load the installer and extract all of the driver files to C:\Iastor folder.  Close the command prompt.

4) Copy the appropriate iastor.sys file from the C:\Iastor\winall folder to your C:Windows\System32\drivers\ directory

5) Click here to download the registry file, or copy the text below and save it as “Intel.reg”

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104]
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e97b-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Security"=hex:01,00,04,90,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,02,\
  00,4c,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,\
  00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,\
  00,00,00,18,00,9f,01,12,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,21,02,00,00
"Service"="iaStor"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"InfPath"="oem39.inf"
"InfSection"="iaStor_Inst_RAID"
"ProviderName"="Intel"
"DriverDateData"=hex:00,c0,44,67,a7,e4,c9,01
"DriverDate"="6-4-2009"
"DriverVersion"="8.9.0.1023"
"MatchingDeviceId"="pci\\ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104"
"DriverDesc"="Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID Controller"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"Tag"=dword:00000019
"ImagePath"=hex(2):73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,\
  52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,69,00,61,00,53,00,74,00,6f,00,72,\
  00,2e,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Intel RAID Controller"
"Group"="SCSI Miniport"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
"BusType"=dword:00000008

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\oromVersion]
"MajorVersion"=dword:00000007
"MinorVersion"=dword:00000005
"HotfixNumber"=dword:00000000
"BuildNumber"=dword:000003f9

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&SUBSYS_82771043&REV_02\\3&11583659&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

6) Double-click on the .reg file and click yes when asked if you want to merge the data into your registry.

7) Reboot the computer and change the SATA configuration in your BIOS to RAID – Windows should load without any issue.

8 ) Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software to complete the driver installation/configuration.

9) Celebrate the fact that you have now enabled RAID without having to reinstall Windows.
Good luck with your RAID install!  Feel free to ask questions here if you need help.

Method #3 – Peregrinus’ Hack

A reader named Peregrinus discovered that there might be an even easier method to get your computer up and running again. Instead of expanding drivers and manually adding registry information to your computer, you can fix the problem with one small registry tweak.

I do have to add the disclaimer that I have not tried this method, so your mileage may vary. Peregrinus stated that this worked for him, so I am publishing this information on his recommendation.

1) With RAID disabled, boot into Windows and start Regedit.exe

2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV

3) In the right-hand column, you should see a value named Start. Double-click this entry and change the data from 1 to 0.

4) Reboot with RAID enabled – Windows should load just fine. Now install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager as you usually would. This time around, it should detect your hardware and install without any issues.

Awhile back, I posted a guide detailing how you can configure CopSSH on your home computer and use it to securely route your Windows Remote Desktop traffic in order to add an extra layer of security to the whole process.

Typically, once Putty was configured and used to create the SSH tunnel to the remote machine, all I would need to do is simply create a loopback RDP connection on port 3390, and I was in business.  In my testing of Windows 7, I found that when attempting to create a loopback connection on port 3390, I would receive an error that a connection was already established.  The exact error reads as follows:

Your computer could not connect to another console session on the remote computer because you already have a console session in progress.

I changed Putty’s configuration to forward on port 3391 instead of 3390, and the problem was solved.  I’m not sure why Windows 7 establishes some sort of connection on 3390, but at least the workaround is pretty painless.

I just wanted to pass along this info for anyone having issues with RDP tunneling.

Bypass this article and fix your Intel RAID Drivers immediately using RAIDFix

An update to this post can be found here

Many people seem to have found my original post about enabling ICH RAID after installing Vista quite helpful, so I thought it would be worth adding a follow-up post to add a few details.

First, some people have suggested that you can simply search for the iastor.sys file instead of navigating to the path I mentioned in the first post.  This should be a fine alternative to manually navigating there, but just be sure to pick the right iastor.sys file.

Second, some people mention that right-clicking on the iastor.inf file located in the same directory as the iastor.sys file gives you an “Install” option.  I have seen that option, and I tried installing the driver in that manner, but it did not  work for me.  Your mileage may vary.

Third, there is the question of ControlSet001 vs CurrentControlSet in the registry entries.  Without getting into too much detail, the CurrentControlSet value in the registry is simply a pointer to whichever Control Set has been loaded by Windows.  For simplicity (and compatability’s) sake, I have changed all entries in the reg file to point to CurrentControSet, rather than to a specific, numbered control set.  More often than not, your system will be using ControlSet001, but that might not always be the case.

Finally, Intel has updated their Matrix Storage Manager software as of 3/13, which means changes need to be made to the registry information in my previous post if you want to install the newest version of the software right off the bat.  If you would rather stick with the slightly older build, you can find it here.

What I decided to do was take a snapshot of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE portion of my registry before and after installing the newest version of the Matrix Storage Manager software to see what values might have changed between versions.  I suppose I can’t say that this is an absolutely bulletproof way of determining what has changed, but it’s a pretty darn good attempt.

Luckily, not a ton has changed – in fact, only one section of the registry file has been altered in the new release.

The second key in the registry file that adds data to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001 key has been slightly altered.  The changes to that section are on lines 2, 5, 6, and 7, which simply denote driver version changes:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
"InfPath"="oem9.inf"
"InfSection"="iaStor_Inst_RAID"
"ProviderName"="Intel"
"DriverDateData"=hex:00,00,97,ae,db,8b,c9,01
"DriverDate"="2-11-2009"
"DriverVersion"="8.8.0.1009"
"MatchingDeviceId"="pci\\ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104"
"DriverDesc"="Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO SATA RAID Controller"

That’s it – those are the only differences, aside from “Enum” entries that are specific to your computer.

Hopefully this helps some of you looking to switch on RAID in your Vista install.

Grab the NEW registry file here

Grab the OLD registry file updated to reflect CurrentControlSet here

Also, if someone would like to take a registry snapshot of their computer before and after both RAID is configured and Matrix Storage Manager is installed, I would love to see those registry files so I can do a bit of comparison.

In a follow up to my Giganews recommendation a few months ago, I am happy to report that Giganews is now working up to 365 days of binary retention from the standard 200 days. Along with this new retention offering, they are cutting the price of their Diamond and Platinum unlimited memberships by 50% for the first three months of service!

This unprecedented move makes your first three months of unlimited Usenet access a paltry $12.49 a month.  How can you beat that??

This is why I said and still believe that Giganews is the best Usenet provider, hands down!

Sign up today!

In a follow up to this post regarding bad firmware on Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.11 line of drives, I am happy to say that they have released a follow up to their original firmware fix.  It is not exactly breaking news, but important enough to relay nonetheless.

You can pick up the firmware images here:  http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951

I flashed two of the affected drives last night with no issues whatsoever.  Still, this is a firmware update so proceed with caution.