Hi guys! I'm running Windows 7 on MSI Z97 Gaming 5. I've got 4 discs:
1 SSD (for OS) 1 HDD (for less important software) and 2xWD RED 3TB (WD30EFRX-68EUZN0) setup in INTEL RAID1 (ver. 13.1.0.2126) on the motherboard (crucial data and software).
Today I've updated the BIOS on the mobo and the SATA settings went back to default - IDE. I've switched it back to RAID but when i press CTRL+I to access RAID setup menu during boot up the Intel controller recognizes all 4 drives but doesn't show any RAID volumes (under the list of volumes it just says "none defined").
Once I boot up Windows, both 3Tb discs are visible as separate drives and as far as I can tell the data is exactly the same and intact on both. The only problem is that RAID no longer compares both and checks the integrity of the data. My question is: how can I re-enable it? It seems that the RAID volume I had was deleted during the BIOS update. From what I read when you create a new RAID volume with INTEL controller it erases all of the data on both drives in the process. I suppose I could do that but if at all possible I’d rather avoid backing up all of the data to a third drive as it’s nearly 2.5Tb. I’d appreciate some suggestions.
Have you checked if you can rebuild the Array using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application in Windows? I am sure you have to use this if one drive in the Array breaks and needs to be replaced. So you should be able to use it to create a new RAID 1 array.
If you can do it, it will require you to wipe the second drive and re-copy the data from the Primary. I strongly advise you to make sure you have a full backup before you start.
Well, it took a couple of days to fix the backup but I finally got to finish this and I've also moved to Windows 10 in the process (yeah I know...but it still beats Win 7 :) For some reason I was under strong impression that you need to manage all of the RAID controller settings from the menu that you access during post. Up until this point I thought the RST is just a monitoring tool / software RAID (which is not recommended) >,< All in all I've learned a lot from this exercise. I've created a backup and afterwards I started rebuilding array. Unfortunately after running integrity check it turned out that about 40Gbs was corrupted and removed. As a result I had to delete the volume and start over but after copying all of the data from a backup everything works fine again. Thanks a bunch for the reply!