How do you install Ubuntu on an Intel RST RAID-0?

Question

I am attempting to install Ubuntu 16.04 to dual boot with Windows 10 on my new PC. I am using an MSI Z170A motherboard and two 512GB M.2 drives. My goal is to RAID-0 both drives, and split the single RAID volume into three partitions - one for Windows 10, one for Ubuntu, and one shared.

In order to do so, I first loaded Windows 10 from a flash drive, and during the install process loaded the Intel RST drivers from the same flash driver. Instead of continuing to install Windows, I rebooted, and in the BIOS set up the RAID volume. I rebooted again, and this time I created the three partitions on the single RAID volume, before finishing the installation of Windows 10 on one of those partitions.

Now, I am trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 from a flash drive created by Rufus. I can successfully boot from the flash drive; however, when I try to proceed with the installation, Ubuntu does not see any usable volumes to install itself on.

I'm aware of the mdadm utility, but am unsure of both (1) where and how to actually use it and (2) whether or not it will actually recognize the software RAID I've created; my goal isn't to create a new RAID volume, but to recognize an existing one. If this isn't possible given my current configuration, I'd like to figure out how to accomplish my overall goal of having a dual boot machine running on a striped RAID-0.

Answer 1

Sometimes it's better to tell a user:

Please don't do this!

My machine came pre-installed with an Intel RST RAID-0 Windows 10 installation and the first thing I did was did was to remove the RAID-0 as no RAID is better then RAID-0!!!

I followed the following steps to accomplish this:

• Take a CloneZilla Live UEFI backup of the pre-installed Windows 10 environment on an external disk.

• Download RTSCLI64 V 13.2.0_1016

• Patch it to ignore driver version checking.

• Boot into the Windows 10 Recovery environment command prompt and delete the RAID array with the patched RSTCLI64:

    rstcli64 --manage --delete OEMRAID0 
  

• Now you have 2 SSDs with a size exactly half of your original RAID-0.

• Restore the CloneZilla Image to my first SSD by editing the sda-pt.parted file to allow it to be restored onto a smaller disk

• Start gparted live to allow gparted to fix the unallocated space as I did not calculate the exact dimensions of the disk.

• installed Ubuntu on my second SSD.

_{^{If you insist on living dangerously there is only one option if you want dual boot:}}

<sub><sup>1. Take a full system backup using CloneZilla Live as you've partitioned space using Windows tools already.
2. Boot into Ubuntu Live by using Try Ubuntu.
3. Open a terminal.
4. Run the command dmraid --erase_metadata --raid_devices /dev/XdY where X and Y denote the SSDs you're using
5. Install Ubuntu using the install icon of your live session.</sup></sub>

_{^{And most important of all: Don't come back and complain you've crashed and burned: Restore your CloneZilla Backup instead.}}