Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID
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RAID1 rebuilding doesn't work and "Missing operating system" error

CSchr3
Beginner
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For about a year now I've been using Intel RST to create and manage a RAID1 array consisting of 2 Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB hard drives.

In addition to that I have a Samsung 840 EVO SSD where my operating system (Windows 7) is installed on.

The problems began when Intel RST suddenly started putting the array into "Rebuild" mode for whatever reason (both hard drives were fully functional at this point).

once the rebuild was done everything seemed to work fine again, until a few weeks later the same problem happened again.

Today it was probably the 4th or 5th time the same problem happened, but the difference is that the rebuild never finished successfully, instead it was stuck at 13% for about 3-4 hours.

Therefore I shutdown the computer, removed both Seagate hard drives from my computer, tested them on my laptop and one of them was in fact no longer working (it didn't sound normal either once I plugged it in so it was certainly broken and not even detected by the system anymore).

As I already purchased a third Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB hard drive before I therefore decided to replace the broken one with the new one and boot the computer again.

Since then, I'm no longer able to even start Windows on the computer.

The RAID array is marked as "Degraded" in the Intel RST option rom and there also does not seem to be any way to add the new Seagate hdd to the raid and rebuild it.

The only options I get there are create raid volume, delete raid volume, reset disks to non-raid and exit.

When I try to boot Windows I instantly get an error "Missing operating system". Why is that? How is my SSD even in any way related to the fact that the raid array just degraded?

I also tried to directly boot from the SSD via the boot menu but that doesn't help either. Apparently by resetting the remaining raid disk to non-raid it will also erase all data on it (!?) so I have not done that yet.

What can I do at this point? Is it even possible to get the raid working again with the new hard drive?

Please let me know if you need any other information about my system.

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idata
Employee
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Hello Chrissi1001,

 

 

Thank you for contacting the Intel community.

 

 

If it is degraded still can be rebuilt.

 

 

Please make sure you have installed the HDDS on the same SATA port they were installed before and that your SATA raid mode is not changed in your BIOS to AHCI. Check the priority of the RAID volume in the system BIOS setting related to boot order.

 

 

Some system BIOS will give the newly inserted hard drive higher priority in the boot order than the degraded RAID volume and will subsequently attempt to boot to the newly inserted hard drive instead of to the RAID volume or the SSD you have installed.

 

 

 

Please let me know.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Ivan.

 

CSchr3
Beginner
2,512 Views

A few minutes ago I decided to simply change the SATA type from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS/UEFI to check if I could at least boot from the SSD after doing that and I was in fact able to boot from the SSD again. Unfortunately Windows crashed during the boot process so I changed the SATA type back to RAID again and the problem seems to be solved. I am now able to successfully boot from the SSD again and no more bluescreens occur while Windows is loading, I also have access to all data on the RAID array from the remaining hdd which is still functional.

I have also already tried your suggestions before doing that and neither the boot order nor the SATA type seemed to be configured incorrectly.

However, due to the issues I had with the RST software in the past weeks/months such as an occasionally really poor overall system performance, unreasonably long boot times and random rebuilds of the RAID array (which I'm pretty sure actually caused the hdd that was being rebuilt to break) I decided to no longer use this software in the future.

I started using this software to create a redundancy and to prevent myself from losing my data due to a broken hard drive and at the end it basically destroys one of my hard drives and prevents me from starting Windows, this is simply ridiculous.

Anyway, thank you for the help.

Regards

Chris

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idata
Employee
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You are more than welcome and I'm really sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused to you.

 

 

At least now your system is up and running and hopefully you will be able to rebuild the RAID, at this point if you are using an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) system like HP, Dell, Toshiba etc I would suggest you to reinstall the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology recommended by your computer manufacturer as it is the proper one for your system; however, if you don't have the latest IRST installed you would be able to download it here:

 

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26700/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-?product=55005 Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST)

 

 

Please let me know if you need anything else and I would be more than glad to help you.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Ivan.

 

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idata
Employee
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Hello ,

 

 

 

I'm following on this post to ask you if you need further assistance.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Ivan.
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CSchr3
Beginner
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Hello Ivan,

I am no longer using IRST thus no further assistance is needed.

Regards

Chris

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idata
Employee
2,512 Views

Thank you for your reply and I apologize for any inconvenience this has cause to you.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Ivan.

 

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