Moving RAID1 arrays to new system after hardware fails RST Compatibility

Important Drivers Specific: Intel AHCI/RAID Drivers
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I have two RAID1 arrays on a system that is failing after loss of power. They are not system drives, but used for data. While trying to recover the system, I noticed that both arrays have a status of “rebuild” in the bios.

Because two of four HDDs must have failed or were missing, I disconnected all of them while troubleshooting the system. Without the RAID arrays connected, and only the boot/OS(windows 10 pro) m.2 drive, I am still receiving BSOD memory management errors.

Because the system is older and I had planned to upgrade soon, I wonder if I can just add the 4 drives to a current board and have it recognize the arrays, even though they are in “rebuild” status.

The current board is the GA-H97-D3H with the latest bios. The optROM version is 13.5.0.2164

The new board will be Asus Proart Z790.

Any advice on how to do this without losing data is greatly appreciated. IE the best way to safely add them back to the system While flagged as “rebuild”.

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For RSTe 5 and 6 the RAID information is storen on the disks and an RAID1 can be transferred to another PC without Problems. For these RSTe versions the member disks were readable on an AHCI adapter, too.

But I doubt you’ll find someone with precisely the same configuration, so it’s just to try out and just in case it doesn’t work to freshly setup the array again and to restore the backup.

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@Geese
You will not be able to get the old Intel RST RAID1 Array usable with your new Intel Z790 chipset system.
Simple reason: The RAID information, which have been written onto the track0 of your old RAID1 Array members, cannot be read by your new system, whose BIOS doesn’t contain any EFI Intel SATA RAID module (just the EFI Intel VMD module v19.5.0.5676).
To save your RAID1 Array data nevertheless, I recommend to do the following (provided, that you have still access to your old system incl. its OS):

  1. Connect the RAID members to the related SATA ports.
  2. Enter the BIOS, make sure, that “RAID” is enabled and join the “Intel Rapid Storage Technology”.
  3. If needed, let the Utility repair the RAID1 Arrays.
  4. Save the settings and leave the BIOS.
  5. Boot into your previously used OS and make a backup of the RAID1 Array data outside of the Arrays.
  6. Enter the BIOS, join the “Rapid Storage Technology” settings and delete both Arrays.
    This way all prevously Intel RAID1 members can be used for any other storage purpose (the related track0 data are deleted).
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@lfb6 Thank you for the reply. I can still enter the bios and see the raids, but I can no longer get into the OS.

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Thank you very much for the lengthy reply. I no longer can get into the OS. There were BSOD errors but now it goes straight to recovery. I am not sure that I want to risk reconnecting the SATA/power to the drives as I suspect that the PSU/MB may be damaged. Before I disconnected the drives, I could access the bios and see the raid1 arrays.

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@Fernando I wonder where my fault is here?

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@Geese If your system crushed when there was some disk activity the disks are no longer in sync, there’s no transaction log which covers these ‘last not finished actions’ and the RAID is in ‘rebuild’
Unfortunately I don’t know any way to find out which disk is the one with the correct data on it.

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There is no fault on your side (see below).

@Geese
As I have already written, the BIOS of your new mainboard doesn’t have an EFI Intel RAID module, but it contains an Intel RAID Option ROM, which belongs to the RST v17 platform (don’t remember the exact version).
So you may try to get access to the Intel RAID Utility by pressing CTRL+I while booting.
.

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@Fernando I don’t think SATA Raid in EFI mode is excluded since later Intel RST versions can map the SATA controller under VMD and then the EFI Intel VMD module v19.5.0.5676 might be sufficient?

See the Raid config Manual linked to this MB:

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Asus manuals ProArt Z790-CREATOR WIFI
INTEL RAID Configuration Guide ( English Edition )

1 Like
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@lfb6
Thanks for your additional info. I didn’t know about the BIOS option to map the SATA Controller under VMD.
@Geese
Please try to get access to the Intel RAID1 Arrays with your new Z790 chipset system by following the “Intel RAID Configuration Guide”.
Good luck!

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@lfb6 @Fernando Thank you both for the information. I will report back after I try it. I expect to have the new PC in a week or so.

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@lfb6 If I connect the drives to the new MB, do you think that the rebuild will work?

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I assume it, but there’s of course no guarantee.

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Thank you. Fingers crossed.

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Please report the result.

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It has been a long day of wonder, worry, but finally what appears to be, knock on wood, success.

When booting the new PC with the SATA drives attached, I received a message that GPT header corruption had been detected. I had to decide if I wanted to allow Auto repair, or not, I wondered if the GPT repair might somehow destroy the block for the raid arrays.

While I mulled it over, I set it up as was suggested under VMD, and was able to see the Arrays. I was very hopeful at this point and decided to try to let the bios auto repair the GPT header. I chose to Auto repair and reboot.

Upon rebooting the PC no longer detected GPT header corruption and went directly to the Windows Installation USB that I had prepared, so I rebooted again to double check arrays in the bios. They were still visible, so I rebooted and installed Windows 11.

After installing windows 11, it took some work to get the RST drivers to work. The latest drivers failed with a platform not compatible error. I had to install the Proart Z790 MB Drivers from Asus’s website first. Within seconds, before the install finished, the drives appeared in windows.

I spent a few minutes browsing and it appears that they are intact. Next I looked for the GUI to see the rebuild progress, but it was not there, it took a few tries and reboots, but finally I was able to install and use the latest GUI. At the time of this post the rebuild is at roughly 40% and 60% for the arrays. Again knock on wood.

I have always felt super safe with Raid1 and have had to rebuild a couple of times only in the past decade. This time with both raids compromised, the system down,and uncertainty about compatibility of current raid drivers, it was a bit harder to feel safe, but it seems to be working out. Thank you both for your help. Yay Technology!

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16

Thanks for the feedback! It’s good to know that RST 19.x still is compatible with rather old versions.

I wonder: Your screenshot showed you in the option rom, so I assumed your disks might be MBR partitioned? Was your previous Windows installation legacy or EFI?

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Sorry that it took so long for me to reply. I still have lots of work to get my system back to where it was. Legacy, but I have had a few hiccups along the way, and my memory isn’t always great so Im not sure if I had to alter the partitions or not.

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@Fernando @lfb6 When I start Intel Memory and storage Management, it is asking me if I want to perform VMD remapping.

“If you wish to create RAID volumes or use Intel Optane Memory technology for storage acceleration then you need to perform a one-time action to remap your devices to VMD controller.”

I worry that it may limit what I use to manage/recover my raids in the future.

Should I do this?