Hello,
Any help would be appreciated. I am currently using the Asus Bios 1601 dated 2013/01/22, located here http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P7P55DE/HelpDesk_Download/ but i am having random crashes of the iaStorA.sys driver. Currently, I am using Windows 8, but before I was using windows 7, and the iaStorA.sys driver crashed and destroyed my Win 7 install.
I was hoping that someone could modify the bios to update the Intel RST to version 12.9 or 13.0 from here Modded Intel AHCI and RAID Drivers MAybe that will solve my issues with the crashes…
Any help would be appreciated!!
Thanks,
Homer
@ homerjr43:
Hello homer,
welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
If you want to update the Intel RAID ROM of your BIOS, you should do it yourself. That is why I have written the guides. Since your mainboard has a non-UEFI AMI BIOS, you should read the start post of >this< thread. The MMTool v3.26 is able to open the latest BIOS and to update the Option ROM modules. I just successfully tested it by updating the Intel RAID ROM v10.5.0.1034 to the "Universally TRIM modded" v11.2.0.1527. I do not recommend to insert any v12.9 or v13 Intel RAID ROM.
I doubt, that your crashes have anything to do with the Intel RAID ROM version of your mainboard BIOS.
Questions:
- Are you running the OS in AHCI or RAID mode? If it is the latter, have you created a RAID array?
- Which Intel RAID ROM version does the BIOS of your mainboard contain now?
- Which Intel RST driver are you using currently?
- Do you have more than 1 optical drive within your computer? If yes, are they connected to the Intel SATA ports?
Regards
Fernando
Fernando,
I currently have 6 3TB drives in a Raid 5 all running on the Intel chipset. I also have an SSD and 750 GB on the Marvell controller and a DVD-RW on the JMicron controller.
My bios has intel RST ROM version 10.5.0.1026, and in Windows 8.1, I am running Intel RST version 12.9.0.1001.
I have alot of data on my raid, over 13TB, so I want to make sure the software is as up to date as possible.
To give some background, my old gigabyte P55 mobo died, and I purchased the Asus P7P55D-E and i migrated my 3 year old windows 7 install to the new mobo. Everything worked great for a month or so, until my computer crashed and iaStorA.sys became corrupted, which totally hosed my whole windows install and caused a HD to drop from the raid. Since Win 8.1 was just released, I decided to upgrade and install. Luckily, everything went smoothly and the raid rebuilt properly. However, today I had a BSOD with an error that stated that the iaStorA.sys failed due to "system thread exception not handled."
Since, i was using the most up to date intel 12.9 driver, I assumed that the problem may be the old 10.5 bios rom…
I just dont want to lose my OS install again, or cause any more HDs to drop from my raid.
I am open to suggestions! any help is appreciated…
Thanks
The Intel RST(e) RAID Drivers (v11.5 and up) do not match the Intel RAID ROM v10.5, which belongs to the "classical" Rapid Storage Technology working without any additional SCSI filter driver.
As I already have written, I recommend to update the Intel RAID ROM to v11.2.0.1527 and not to any v12 or v13 OROM. The best suitable driver for this v11.2 OROM is the Intel RST RAID driver v11.2.0.1006.
The problem of the RAID driver "downgrade" may be less critical than with Win7 (look >here<), because Win8/8.1 don’t use the SCSI filter driver named iaStorF.sys.
By the way: You didn’t answer my question regarding the optical drives. The connection of more than 1 optical drive with Intel SATA ports may cause massive problems with Intel SATA port connected RAID devices.
@homerjr43
I’m running an ASUS P7P55D-E LX. I’ve modded the 1602 (?) bios for the ASUS P7P55D-E LX to update several option roms including the raid option rom to version 13.0.0.2075. I’ve not updated the Marvell SATA Controller option rom because I bricked it. I’m running windows 8.1 Update 1 and the intel raid controller runs my 2x 80Gb Intel 320 SSD’s in raid0 just fine with the new RST 13.0.3.1001 (with trim - although trim is a little slower than the previous RST 13 versions). I haven’t benched my raid0 so I can’t comment on the relative speed of my raid0 compared to the option ROM/RST drivers that Fernando recommends. You will probably have best results if you modify your 1601 bios using the methods and files that Fernando lists. I’ve not had any problems with modded bios for my P7P55D-E LX carefully following Fernando’s instructions.
If you have any questions or problems ask on this forum and you will get an answer.
If you wish to remain active, I am looking for someone with an on-board Marvell 9120 SATA controller to send me a copy of the bios for the controller to help me restore my Marvell 9120 SATA controller.
Good Luck
The Intel RST(e) RAID Drivers (v11.5 and up) do not match the Intel RAID ROM v10.5, which belongs to the "classical" Rapid Storage Technology working without any additional SCSI filter driver.
As I already have written, I recommend to update the Intel RAID ROM to v11.2.0.1527 and not to any v12 or v13 OROM. The best suitable driver for this v11.2 OROM is the Intel RST RAID driver v11.2.0.1006.
The problem of the RAID driver "downgrade" may be less critical than with Win7 (look >here<), because Win8/8.1 don’t use the SCSI filter driver named iaStorF.sys.
By the way: You didn’t answer my question regarding the optical drives. The connection of more than 1 optical drive with Intel SATA ports may cause massive problems with Intel SATA port connected RAID devices.
Ok, when i have some more time to devote to this project, I will update to the 11.2 ROM and downgrade to the 11.2 driver. Thanks for your help! Also, I do not have any optical drives on the intel chipset, it only has the 6 3TB drives in a raid 5.
Out of curiosity, why do you recommend the 11.2 ROM and Driver…what has intel done to make the V. 12 and V.13 worse?
When i get into the bios and attempt to update the Intel ROM, i will see if I can extract the Marvell controller for you. Not sure, when I will have time to get this done, as I have a one year old and unfortunatly, my wife has been in the hospital for four weeks. So needless to say, I have been very busy!
@homerjr43
I’m so sorry to hear about your wife. My wife was released from the hospital last month after a 10 day stay. My offspring are grown adults living away from home on their own. They can provide help if I need instead of requiring my care and attention, so I can appreciate that your time is at a premium.
With that in mind I have attached a compressed folder with the following:
MMTOOL.exe version 3.26
P7P55D-E-ASUS-1601.ROM (the 1601 BIOS file for the ASUS P7P55D-E I downloaded from the ASUS support site you noted in your first post)
Option ROM files for the on-board Intel SATA controller for the ASUS P7P55D-E versions 11.2.0.1527, 12.9.0.2006, 13.0.0.2075 and 13.1.0.2030 (without the trim enabling mod)
BIOS files for the ASUS P7P55D-E with each of the Option ROM files noted above inserted into each BIOS file as noted in the file names.
I didn’t use Option ROM files with the trim enabled mods because it seems to me that the 3TB drives you are using are probably platter hard drives, not SSD’s, so trim is not necessary because it is for SSD’s only, not platter hard drives. I am unaware that 3TB SSD’s are commercially available, but if you wish to use the trim enabled modded Option ROM files these are available on this forum. I believe Fernando recommended the 11.2.0.1527 Option ROM and 11.2 RST driver because this combination generally has very good performance for the ASUS P7P55D-E generation hardware. Later versions of the Option ROM’s and drivers were most likely developed for later chipset versions. However, as I noted, I am running a similar mainboard as you with later Option ROM/RST driver combinations that perform satisfactorily for me. It seems possible that later versions of these ROM/RST Drivers may have
optimizations for later Windows operating systems as well as for later chipsets.
Feel free to use or not use any or all of the files I provided. I did not test the modded BIOS files I created because I do not have access to a ASUS P7P55D-E, so your use of any of these files is at your sole risk (as is the case for all of use who use BIOS files we mod ourselves).
Good Luck and please let us know if any of these BIOS files solve your problem.
Also, I’m not looking to extract the Marvell controller from the BIOS. I’m looking to extract it from the EEPROM chip associated with the on-board controller. But I’m not in any hurry for this because I have another option I’m pursuing to solve my problem so, if I do desire your help I’ll ask later - but thanks for your offer.
Oops - lets try uploading the file again.
OK I see the problem, can’t use 7z compressed files - lets try a zip file.
EDIT by Fernando: The attachment has been deleted at 02/16/2017.
Yes, only .zip and .rar compressed files can be attached. It is the Forum software, which doesn’t allow to attach .7z files. I am sorry about that.
Thanks so much!