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I recently wanted to upgrade my desktop by adding a VANTEC (Marvell) UGT-MST644R (2mSATA + 2SATA) Raid card with HyperDuo capability. I also purchased two 240Gb SSD cards that fit directly on the MST644R. The PCIeX2 card also offer 2 SATA ports to which I am connecting a 2Gb Seagate hard drive. The whole setup is configured as HyperDuo which basically means the two SSD are the front end temporary storage for fast access and the Seagate-HD is for permanent "slower" storage backup. In total this gives 2Gb of HD storage with 2xSSD speed, or something of the like.

The computer is an hp Pavilion desktop AMD processor 2.2GHz with 6gig RAM. Windows-7 Ultimate use to work just fine until I attempted to install the above setup with the MST644R. I proceeded as the instructions specified by VANTEC. Connected the two SSD cards and the Seagate HD on VANTEC SATA port 0 and disabled the RAID on my computer bios since no storage devise was connected to the original MoBo SATA connectors. A fresh Windows-7 install from DVD was then performed almost successfully. At reboot time I get an error: "BOOTMGR is Missing". Tried to use the Repair tool from the Windows DVD without success.

Then, for investigation purposes, I re-installed my original system HD on SATA1 of the MoBo and re-enabled the Bios Raid, so as to get access to the Drive, while maintaining the MST644R connected. My previously installed Windows-7 booted normally and I am able to see the Seagate 2Gb HD from the HyperDuo configuration.

In Short: I can get access to the added storage from the MST644R and can boot from my other original HD, but cannot get a fresh new Windows-7 install to boot from the Seagate HD when the original HD is removed. At boot time the system seems to not see the boot sector, which is definitely present cause I could see in from the Computer Management Storage tool in Windows.

The Question: What am I doing wrong such that Windows-7 will not boot after a fresh install with the above configuration ? Much appreciation for any help.

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  • Installing from a DVD is what's wrong (actually installing Win7 which is almost End of Life is what's wrong no matter the media). Modern UEFI systems require compatible OSes. Win7 can't be installed in UEFI mode with a DVD.
    – user931000
    Commented Sep 13, 2019 at 9:46

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After countless investigative hours I finally nailed down the source of problem. My CPU fan was dying (slowing down but not stopped, hence the tedious diagnostic). At the end of the Windows 7 installation there is a period of increased CPU activity, and temperature increase, to the point where, sometime I was getting a Blue Death Screen, sometime just a complete restart.

After suspecting a computer fault I proceeded to use the same VANTEC card (with SSDs and HD) on another computer and was able to successfully install Windows 7 without any problem. I then re-tried my Windows 7 install on my hp desktop with the corrected cooling fan and got to install Windows 7 successfully.

The Solution: I replaced my CPU cooling apparatus and everything is OK since then.

Thanks to Gabriela for your attempt to help but One Can install Windows 7 from a DVD. I have done it many times in the past. Cheers...

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