Hello all ,
great and informative forum here btw
i have a case that needs some help ,
working on non popular motherboard here labeled “NEX 882L” manufacture is NEXCOM , its a CCTV PC station model "NVIS 6220
http://www.nexcom.com/Products/intellige…lance-nvis-6220
now the station has 8 SATA Drives connected to builtin Intel Rapid Storage RAID controller , but the drives sizes are read incorrectly (detected 1.4TB while each drive is actually 6TB), after long research i suspect its because of the old version of the onboard RST 10.0.0.35
so i need to update the RST to a higher version but there is no BIOS update and the manufacture is no help .
my big question is , can i update the RST (AMI UEFI BIOS) without having the original BIOS file? can i extract it from the PC directly?
what is the best course of action here ?
That could be a BIOS issue, but likely not since RST 10 supports drives larger than that. Older drivers such as 10.0.0.35 may limit to 2.2TB, but that’s the driver only.
What driver version are you using? Drivers after 10.1 should not have any 2.2TB limitations, so be sure you install a newer driver
What operating system is being used and does it support large drives like this? How the drives are being formatted can also cause this problem. How are you formatting them, NTFS, FAT32, exFAT etc.
FAT32 could cause this exact 1.4TB issue itself, so be sure you are not formatting to FAT32
You must initialize the drive as GPT as well, not MBR. You may need to delete all volumes, or use software partition application such as EaseUS to convert the drive from MBR to GPT if they’re MBR now.
If they are empty, or contents can be moved or deleted, it’s easier to just wipe out the drive to raw, and then re-initialize as GPT then create your partitions.
You can possibly update/modify the BIOS and reflash, but that is a big risk if the flash fails. In order to dump a copy of the BIOS you can use Intel Flash Programming Tool (FPT) or AMI program AFU
AFU guide and download here, step #3 shows how to backup/dump the current BIOS - [Guide] Flashing modified AMI Aptio UEFI using AFU
Intel FPT download attached at bottom of this post
Dump commands for FPT - fptw -d backup.bin (If you get error 26, or any “access” errors, you may not be able to easily backup the entire BIOS, but still may be able to reflash the BIOS portion which contains the RST rom)
Dump commands for AFU - AFU backup.rom /O (replace AFU name with actual file name, like afuwinx64.exe or afudos.exe, depending on your system) to make current BIOS backup
Before any BIOS stuff though, I would make sure it’s not some other issue such as drivers or drive formatting choices, because RST 10.0.0.35 being the ROM doesn’t matter (ie isn’t even used unless RAID array invoked), the drivers for RST do matter and should be greater than 10.1
For driver info, these two threads will help you pick best ones for your needs
Which are the “best” Intel AHCI/RAID drivers?
Intel RST/RSTe Drivers (newest: v16.0.10.1104 WHQL/v5.4.0.1462 WHQL)
Flash Programming Tool.zip (2.88 MB)
@krmprince :
Welcome to the in-RAID Forum!
You are quite right regarding the origin of your issue: Over 2TB sized Intel RAID Volumes are only detected, if the BIOS contains an Intel RAID ROM v10.6.x.xxxx or higher (look >here<).
Solution: The replacement of the currently used Intel RST RAID ROM v10.0.0.35 will solve your problem. I recommend to take the Intel RST RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527.
Regarding your questions about how to extract the currently in-use BIOS Region from your mainboard’s BIOS chip you should follow Lost_N_BIOS’s advices.
Good luck!
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Thanks, appreciate the advice there @Fernando - I can edit into BIOS, but I am not up to speed on which roms are best for what chipsets and situations, so thank you for the suggested version.
Is that rom version OK for Q67 chipset? Not second guessing you here, you’re the expert on this, but wasn’t sure if you noticed the chipset or not.
If, due to the situation, we can’t get the BIOS updated, does that apply no matter what, even if newer drivers are used with the old rom in the BIOS still?
And, does that limit only apply when RAID Is used, or does it apply to AHCI too if old ROM? Asking this because I’m not sure if they were using RAID or not.
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Thanks! So if NO RAID, only AHCI, then BIOS RST rom version doesn’t matter, only windows driver versions - to clarify 
the issue is that the intel RAID ROM 10.0.0.35 does not read size correctly so i can not setup RAID5 from RST menu itself and i do not want to use OS dependent RAID5
also the performance of the station is really unstable basically the RST SEES 1.4TB while the OS sees 6TB drive (windows sees sizes correctly after applying windows driver"
so i need to update the RST to 10.5 atleast
Thanks for confirming you do want to use RAID. SO yes, as Fernando mentioned you will need an updated RST rom in your BIOS, if we can get that accomplished.
Try to get a dump or backup of your BIOS how I outlined above in my first reply, then I can make you a modified BIOS w/ updated RST and help get it flashed. Hopefully
I plan to dump th BIOS using your advised instructions and use the tool UBU to edit and replace the ROD module
correct path ??
That may be OK, using UBU, I’m not sure I’d have to look at the BIOS before and after the mod to see if it looks OK.
Since this is not a normal instance, ie regular mainstream motherboard BIOS, it should be checked over with several programs in order to try be as sure as possible that everything look OK before you attempt to reflash it back