All Disks Marked as "Non-Raid Disk"

[PHopk]

Hello,

So My PC rebooted and the BIOS lost its configuration.

I've set everything back. ATA set to RAID etc..

But now all Disks that were in the RAID are now marked as Non-Raid and the Volume is no longer there.

How can I force the Intel RST to pick the RAID volume back up without losing the data that was stored on it??

Attached is the System Report..

[idata]

Hello Tularis,

Thank you for contacting the Intel community. I'm sorry about the issue you have experience with the RAID configuration. What RAID volume you had created? If you access the Ctrl-I option ROM and if they show as Non-Raid disks then for some reason the HDDs were removed or set to non-raid, it is hard to tell why this happens but there is no reason for all HDDs to come out of the RAID. Do you have your system information back up? If not, you still should be able to back them up if there was no RAID 0 created. At this point, in the way the HDDs look, you will need to create the RAID volume again and there is no way to force the IRST or you system in any way to bring those HDDs into the RAID there were before. I'm sorry this is not the answer you expected but unfortunately there is no more RAID volume on your system. Best regards, Ivan U.

[PHopk]

Hi Ivan,

thanks for the response.

I thought that that might be the case.

So the bios reset and put the sata controller into ahci (Overnight so unknown to me) I rebooted and put the rst back to RAID and all disks went to "non-raid".

can we really not have an option to backup the RAID meta data? I have seen this requested alot!

following some instructions I found in these forums I recreated the raid5 volume and then restore the deleted partition. Unfortunately after the partition was restored the data was corrupt and chkdsk didnt fix the data.

so the data was there, I find it hard to see why the RST would have marked all disks as non raid......

i do have a backup from about 6months ago. The volume is 16tb which would be quite expensive to replicate for a backup.

I just wish wish the RST had better restore options. I would have been better storing the data on non raid disks if the RAID can just vanish for no reason.....

[idata]

Hello Tularis,

I understand and absolutely that will be a great option and thank you for your feedback but unfortunately this option is not available right now and based on the information we manage there is no plans to do something like that, the IRST is not fault tolerance so for that reason it is strongly recommended having a back up of the data to avoid losing it. Best regards, Ivan U.

[PHopk]

Hi Ivan,

I have done some testing of my own and I have found a serious failing of the Intel RST controller.

First I have tested each disk to make sure they were not faulty.

When the SATA controller is placed from RAID - AHCI and the PC reboots then placed back to AHCI all RAID Configuration is lost...

Steps to recreate :

Create RAID Volume

Reboot and change SATA from RAID (Intel RST Premium) to AHCI

Reboot and attempt to load windows

Reboot and change SATA from AHCI to RAID (Intel RST Premium)

All Disks are now no longer in a RAID Array...

I'm now at a loss of what to do as I can not rely on this RAID controller at all, as if the BIOS is to reset to defaults I now lose all of my data....

[PHopk]

Some Further Testing.

Create RAID Volume

Reboot

[BIOS] Set SATA from RAID to AHCI

Reboot - DO NOT LET OS LOAD

[BIOS] Set SATA from ACHI to RAID

Reboot - DO NOT LET OS LOAD

Raid 5 Failed Missing 2 HDDs

After this is don't think I will ever trust Intel RAID.

[idata]

Hello Tularis,

Please bear in mind that when you talk about Intel® Rapid Storage Technology this is software level and when you do something at the BIOS this is mostly at the hardware level. Changing from RAID to AHCI I don't see why if you are planning to use a RAID, why playing in the BIOS changing from RAID to AHCI when you have a RAID already created? Now, you have an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) system, we provide our software and hardware to OEMs for them to integrate it in their systems based on the features and specifications for the system they want to build, and this software and hardware can be customized to have it work based on the configuration they want. If you get issues at the BIOS level your best contact support is with your computer or motherboard manufacturer as they are more familiar with this BIOS configuration and how your components will interact with each other. There is a possibility that you will need a BIOS update from your computer manufacturer, if there is a bug you computer manufacturer will need to try to replicate it. Regards, Ivan U.

[PHopk]

Hi Ivan,

The swapping of the SATA to AHCI from RAID and back again was to simulate what would happen if the bios was to reset its self. As that was what happened in my case.

And in every case when this happens the RAID configuration is broken with two disks being marked as non-raid in a raid 5 array. This is a serious failure of the Intel RAID controller. When it is put back into RAID mode it should be able to detect the RAID configuration on all disks.

I am already running the latest BIOS from gigabyte the motherboard is a Z170X-G3.

Because of this I can not reliably trust the Intel RST with my data.u

[idata]

I understand your concern and I'm sorry if you lost data and the RAID configuration.

Please bear in mind is not possible for the BIOS or for a RAID to have the HDDs as Non-RAID without doing anything on the system. Also, if you change from RAID to AHCI losing your data or your RAID volume can be normal behavior because this is software RAID solution if you need something more reliable you will need to get a RAID controller card which is hardware RAID solution. I'm sorry if you lost important information and if you need to recover the information there are some companies or computer shops where they can recover the information for you. Best regards, Ivan U.