How to make Chameleon boot Windows 7 on a SSD RAID array?

[theconnactic]

Hello, good people!

 

I just successfully installed 10.8.3 on a i7-2600k/Gigabyte

Z68XP-UD3 (BIOS v. 10, "Touch BIOS") using a USB 3 external HDD and everything works just fine, except for one annoying thing: this computer have also Windows 7, installed on a RAID array using two SSD disks, and when i try to boot it from Chameleon, i get a "no bootmngr" message. I have to resort to hit F12 and change the boot order to access Windows. How do i solve this? RAID is not a realm where i really feel comfortable.

 

Another question, albeit related to the first: if i clone the OSX installation from the external HDD to an internal one, will it be able to boot, despite SATA mode being set as RAID? Or OSX and Windows RAID arrays cannot share the same space?

t!

All the besr

[3.14r2]

Is it an on-board RAID (motherboard provided feature) or PCI-E/PCI-X/PCI card? If it's MB, then no way it can be used by OS X/Chameleon as this type of RAID is not true RAID as such, it's more like software RAID.

Another question, albeit related to the first: if i clone the OSX installation from the external HDD to an internal one, will it be able to boot, despite SATA mode being set as RAID? Or OSX and Windows RAID arrays cannot share the same space?

If the external USB3 HDD can be disassembled (HDD removed) and the disk inside the box is a true SATA disk (with SATA interface, as there are 2.5" HDD used in USB external disks, that has a build-in USB interfaces and have no other interfaces except USB connector; Samsung, WD for instance), then you could simply install it to your PC and use it at once. I did this in the early days of may hackintoshing days It was an IDE disk in fact, installed OS X to it via USB enclosure then put it back to PC, and booted. So no need for cloning...

 

...this computer have also Windows 7, installed on a RAID array using two SSD disks, and when i try to boot it from Chameleon, i get a "no bootmngr" message. I have to resort to hit F12 and change the boot order to access Windows. How do i solve this? RAID is not a realm where i really feel comfortable.

There is Chameleon version that can work off the Windows drive, but I'm not sure it will be able to function from within RAID volume. You can use a third boot loader such as GRUB to chainload both OSs (provided the RAID you're using is supported by GRUB).

[theconnactic]

Thank you very much for answering, my friend! I'm afraid though that i didn't make myself clear: there are a couple of empty HDDs available for the role of being the cloning destination, so disassemble the external case isn't really needed. The problem is, this computer have this RAID array containing a Win 7 installation, which cannot by any means be discarded. So what really want to know is if a installation of OSX (in an internal 3.5'' HD, of course) will be able to boot, despite the BIOS setting for SATA mode being RAID instead of AHCI (and, again, to stress the situation: this must not be changed, since the Win 7 installation must not be altered in any way).

 

All the best!

 

P.S.: AFAIK it's indeed an onboard feature, this RAID mode of the said computer: here's what Everest tells me about it:

 

 

 

[ Intel 82801HB/IB ICH8/ICH9 - SATA RAID Controller ] Device Properties: Device Description Intel 82801HB/IB ICH8/ICH9 - SATA RAID Controller Bus PCI Bus / Device / Function 0 / 31 / 2 Device ID 8086-2822 SubSystem ID 1458-B000 Device Class 0104 (RAID Controller) Revision 05 Fast Back-to-Back Transactions Supported, Disabled Device Features: 66 MHz Supported Bus Mastering Enabled

[3.14r2]

will be able to boot, despite the BIOS setting for SATA mode being RAID instead of AHCI

Yes AFAIK.

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=300767