A couple of years ago I had a system built with a Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H motherboard (Intel Z77 chipset) and 2 HDD’s running in Raid1 mode. In the BIOS the SATA mode is set to RAID and the Intel RST Option ROM is of version 11.1.0.1413.
Shortly after taking possession of the system, I upgraded successfully from Win7 to Win8 Pro 64-bit. However, after starting an update from Win8 to 8.1 the system crashed at the end of the update process with an error message saying (if I remember well) something like “no bootable media found”.
Does this having something to do with the Intel RST software? Is there a newer version that would solve my problem? My aim is to finally upgrade to Win10 but the upgrade route is via Win8.1, no direct route from Win8 to Win10.
Thanks a bunch for any tips!
Lou
@ Lou:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Is your System drive (with the letter C:) inside or outside the RAID Array?
No and no. The error message indicates, that the boot sector either got corrupted or couldn’t been found during the update process.
The boot sector can be repaired by using the Win8.1 Installation media.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Danke schön, Dieter, for the fast reply.
I only have the 2 HDD’s, so the System drive is inside the RAID Array.
So, if I run a boot sector repair, do you think the Win8 to 8.1 upgrade could run successfully? One further thing isn’t clear to me, but that may be because I’m not an expert on system software (that’s why I’m here ;-). If the boot sector is corrupted, wouldn’t this cause problems on a normal startup also? I never noticed anything irregular starting the system.
Thanks again for your help,
Lou
P.S.
I just found this discussion (albeit 2 years old) which corresponds to the problem I had. Could the RST-version play a roll after all? The OP wrote:
Incidentally, if these tools (meaning the RST-tools) are already installed in Windows 8.0 system with SATA set to (Intel) RAID, the Windows 8.1 upgrade will trash the system in a way that I haven’t been able to recover. Cannot get into safe mode. Auto repair runs for hours before rebooting to a blue-screen.
This is exactly what happened to me…
Zitat von Lou im Beitrag #3
I just found this discussion (albeit 2 years old) which corresponds to the problem I had. Could the RST-version play a roll after all? The OP wrote:This is exactly what happened to me…
That is one of the reasons why I dont install the Intel RST Software on AHCI systems at all and install it on RAID systems only temporarily (to get the Write-Back Caching enabled) and uninstall it again as soon as possible.
Question: Is your OS already unavailable or is it possible for you to return to Windows 8?
If it is he latter, you can simply uninstall the Intel RST Software (not the RAID driver) from within the Control Panel ("Programs"), reboot and retry the update to Win8.1.
Note: The Intel RST Software is not essentially needed, it just is monitoring your RAID array and gives you the option to repair it from within Windows.
The only thing you should not do is to uninstall the Intel RAID driver.
Thanks for enlightening me on the purpose of the RST-tools, I thought they were essential in running the RAID-system.
At the time I went back to Windows 8 using my backup and have been using it ever since the mishap which is now about 2 years ago (meanwhile I’ve clicked hundreds of times on the button “Remind me later” every time an update to 8.1 was offered…).
So, I could indeed uninstall the RST-software and give it another try. Nevertheless, it remains frustrating not knowing what went wrong in the first place. I now still have this hit-or-miss feeling. On the other hand “Never ventured, nothing gained”…
Tomorrow morning I’ll start making a full disk backup and then launch another attack.
Thanks again,
Lou
I did make the full disk backup today (containing, among other things, 400 GB of HD video files…) but didn’t start the Win8 to 8.1 update attempt yet. I opened a technical support query instead with the makers of the Gigabyte mobo and asked them for a comment. I’m awaiting there response before proceeding further.
However, what I am contemplating to do is to in the meantime run the latest RST-setup (13.1.0.1058) for the Z77-chipset. Not that I think it will solve anything now but I suppose it doesn’t harm anything either. And it gives me something to do while waiting…
Lou
P.S.
Version 13.1.0.1058 should support Windows 8.1.
After having received some pre-cooked, irrelevant answers from Gigabyte, I decided to take the plunge and start the upgrade to Windows 8.1. Everything went well, so I take it that the previous raid driver was the culprit. By the way, during 2 upgrades, on my desktop as well as on my laptop, I got error code 0x80070652 right after the dowload and the enlightening error text “Something went wrong”. Googling with the error code I found a tip by Microsoft to clear the Store cache and then everything went alright. Funny…
By the way #2: If you have an Asus laptop running Power4Gear, do uninstall this software before attempting an upgrade to 8.1. Not only do the Windows energy control settings the same, but at the end of the upgrade, Power4Gear switched off the laptop’s screen so I had to use a torch to see what was on it.
Thanks again for thinking with me!
Lou