I have heard from somewhere in this forum before that future Win10 updates will include Intel RAID driver version 15+. So now that I see a popup message on my screen saying 1803 is ready to be installed, u can probably understand why I am literally panicking.
Not comfortable installing this as my RAID ROM is ver 11 and as it is now, the Windows driver is already at 13.44.0.1026 and while thankfully I haven’t noticed any compatibility issues, I am pretty sure anything above ver 14 will cause havoc to my ICH8R-based system (as this has happened to me before and I had to wipe my system clean and do a fresh installation of Win10 w/ an older RAID driver).
So instead of an in-place upgrade, I will for certain download then mod my offline installation image to replace it with one of the older RAID drivers first. Here comes the question: is this actually a good opportunity to go back to best driver for ICH8R (namely Intel RST v11.2.0.1006 WHQL) by modding the image with this old driver? Keep in mind that my current system already has 13.44.0.1026 installed (due to my negligence while doing previous Win10 updates).
Thanks !
@seemebreakthis :
It is not easy to predict, what will happen while updating the OS of your currently used Intel RAID system to Win10 v1803. It may even work fine with your old ICH8R Southbridge (keep in mind, that the new generic in-box Intel RAID driver v15.44.0.1026 is not a normal Intel RST(e) RAID driver, because it has no associated *.cat and no associated iaStorF.sys file).
This is what I recommend to do:
1. Create a customized Win10 v1803 Image by removing the generic Intel RAID driver (INF file: iastorav.inf) and inserting the Intel RST RAID driver v11.2.0.1006 (INF file: iaStor.inf) according to >this< guide and prepare a bootable USB Flash Drive with the customized Win10 v1803 image on it by using the tool Rufus.
2. Save your important personal data, which are on your drive C.
3. Make a complete backup of your currently used system drive (with the OS and the usually hidden boot partition) and store it outside your system drive. This can be done by using Win10.
4. Uninstall the Intel RST Software (not the driver!) from within the Control Panel Add/Remove Software section.
5. Now you can start the Win10 v1803 Upgrade procedure.
6. Look, what happens.
This way you have all options:
a) to keep the content of the old system drive (if the upgrade works fine) or
b) to do a fresh install of Win1803 onto your Intel RAID0 array (if the upgrade should fail or you are not satisfied with the result).
Just to quickly report back to say I am all done with the upgrade, by going through the USB Flash Drive method in the process, and of course customizing the v1803 image before upgrading.
My system is now once again running the v11.2.0.1006 Intel RST RAID driver. Been using my machine for more than a day and zero problem so far. I have even done some performance testing of my RAID 1 array and the system in general to make sure the speed is normal.
So I guess it is okay to move back down from v13 to v11 ONLY WHEN you are doing one of these Windows Creators update.
Nope… the horrible BSODs are back. Can’t even boot into Windows anymore 
I guess lesson learned is NOT to do the fall back from RST(e) RAID driver back to RST. My weekend will be spent salvaging data and re-installing Win10 (and apps) from scratch.
(didn’t do the backup, should have listened to you Fernando)
Edit: I should mention I have a dual boot system, one running Vista and one running Win10. Was noticing “duplicated disk identifier” warning or something like that in Win10 event log since the update, but it was when I booted back in Vista (also having iaStor.sys v11.2.0.1006) that the whole system started going nuts. Then I couldn’t even boot into either of the two systems. Now I have de-attached the Win10 raid drives, configured boot sector to just recognize Vista as the only installed OS, then thankfully I started Vista successfully. Now letting it validate RAID integrity after which I will reattach the Win10 drives as data drives, copy my stuff to other areas, then do a fresh install of Win10 1803 with v11.2.1006 RAID driver. So much for the supposedly relaxing weekend.
@seemebreakthis It seems both you and I are wondering why on earth MS are bundling automatic driver updates into OS images… (I suppose it makes sense - to support newer hardware)
I signed up to say I had drama with 3X Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3TB drives on an X79 in RAID0 on Windows 10 1803. Basically I could write maybe 1 GB before all I/O to the volume would stop. It was driving me nuts, I swapped out cables, ran SMART DSTs and then remembered that my trouble started recently…
I checked device manager and sure enough it had put v15 drivers on. So I installed 3.8 from this site and I can report it is all back to normal now. I’ve trashed the RAID0 volume with Crystal Disk Mark many times - it hasn’t frozen yet.
@seemebreakthis
Thanks for your interesting report.
@bigjezza :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum and thanks for your report!
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)