Raid failure after Bios battery died.

[Johnfromperth]

I am running Windows 10 Home on a ASRock Z170 Pro4 motherboard with Bios version P3.50

I have two Western Digital 4Tb drives in Raid 1 (mirror) as an archive for photographs.

The Raid is managed by Intel Rapid Storage Technology Version 14.5.0.1081_PV

My boot drive C:/ is an Intel 250Gb SSD.

Recently I got the BSOD 'Inaccessible Boot Device' error.

Investigation found that the Bios coin battery was dead.

Replacing the battery did not clear the error.

Through BSOD Advanced Options I found I could boot into Safe Mode and on restart the computer booted into normal Windows with no remedial action by me. All subsequent re-starts were now normal into Windows.

On examination I found that the two Raid 1 drives were now listed as two separate drives and the Raid button in the Bios has been set to Disabled. Setting it to Enabled takes me back to the BSOD Inaccessible Boot Device error screen. 

On accessing the Rapid Storage Technology program I get an error message saying "An unknown error occurred while running this application. Please restart your computer or re-install the application".

Where do I go from here?

How do I re-link the two drives back into a Raid 1 configuration?

Although I have backed up the data on the drives to an external drive, I do not want to lose the data on the Raid drives as some warnings suggest may happen when setting up a Raid array.

It also seems there are two ways to set up a Raid configuration, one through the Bios and one using RST. Is that correct?

Thanks for any suggestions.

John

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello Johnfromperth,  

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.   

In order to better assist you, please provide the following:  

1. Run the Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU) to gather more details about the system.  

· Download the Intel® SSU and save the application on your computer: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18377/intel-system-support-utility-for-windows.html

· Open the application, check the "Everything" checkbox, and click "Scan" to see the system and device information. The Intel® SSU defaults to the "Summary View" on the output screen following the scan. Click the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".  

· To save your scan, click Next and click Save.  

2. When did the issue start?

3. Did you notice the issue after a system update (Windows, drivers, BIOS)?

4. Did you update the BIOS version?

5. Have you checked with ASRock if the issue was related to the CMOS battery of the motherboard itself?

Regards,   

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[Johnfromperth]

Hello Deivid

Thankyou for your prompt reply.

I have attached the results of the Intel SSU scan as requested.

In reply to your questions.

1. The start-up BSOD issue and loss of Raid 1 configuration started on 24th December ( or maybe a day earlier).

2. No recent updates have been done of  Drivers, Windows 10 or the Bios. No new programs installed.

3. I cannot find any reference to this problem on the ASRock website.

My main concern is to re-link the two 4Tb hard drives back into Raid 1 configuration with the least amount of data loss.

I have not written any new data or deleted any data from these drives since the issue began.

Nor have I made any system changes. The only actions I have done is to replace the Bios battery and do a backup of one of the 4Tb drives to an external hard drive.

Note that the Intel RST program will not run, just returns an error message as described in my previous email.

The computer is used for photo processing using Photoshop and Lightroom. It has no internet connection.

Thankyou for you assistance.

Best regards

John

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello Johnfromperth, 

Thank you for the information provided 

I will proceed to check the issue internally and post back soon with more details. 

Best regards, 

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello Johnfromperth, 

Based on the issue presented, this does not look like issues with the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) tool. Seems to be related to the motherboard or the operating system.

I recommend you to try the following:

1. Update your BIOS to the latest version (7.50).

2. Reinstall the operating system.

3. Recreate the array.

4. Contact ASRock for further steps if the previous steps did not work.

Note: You can put the drives on another unit and save/backup the data.

Best regards, 

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[Johnfromperth]

Hi Deivid

I believe the sequence of events are as follows.

The Bios battery died (Zero volts measured) and all advanced settings in Bios were lost.

On starting the computer, the Bios was now in its default settings, and as there were now no settings in the bios for Raid, the Raid configuration was lost.

Somehow this upset the Intel RST utility, which now will not run.

The Windows 10 operating system seems to be working normally.

I suspect the Intel RST utility has been corrupted, as it will not run. Just returns an error message.

Is it possible to reinstall the utility over the old one or should the old utility be un-installed first?

The next concern is re-creating the Raid 1 array. The notes I have read all assume that the array is being created on a new system with blank drives. They also indicate that if there is any data on the the drives will be erased when the array is set up. I can find no reference to setting up a Raid 1 array with data on either disk.

Is there a way to just simply re-link the existing drives without data loss? 

Regards

John

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello Johnfromperth, 

In this case, what I can recommend you is the following:

1. Try to uninstall the old Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) driver/tool before installing a new version.

2. You will need to back up your data and recreate the RAID.

3. Check with the motherboard manufacturer to confirm if there is a hardware failure since the BIOS battery was the source of the issue.

Please keep in mind that this thread will no longer be monitored by Intel.  

Best regards, 

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician