Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology (RAID) not finding OS drive

[Maastonakki]

Hello!

 

I end up in bit of struggle, where my old PC MB broke, and on that PC I had two SSD:s setup in RAID0 on Intel Rapid Storage Tech tool from BIOS (old MB was ASUS Maximus VI Hero), and new when I went and replaced CPU, MB and Memories with new i3-12100F, I'm able to see the RAID volume in BIOS, but not able to boot in OS which is on another disk.

 

As can be seen from pictures, if Intel Rapid Storage Tech is enabled, BIOS does find "Intel Games RAID", but isn't able to pick up boot partition from Kingston disk. If I disable Rapid Storage Tech, then windows boot partition can be found from Kingston disk, but again, Intel Games RAID isn't detected.

 

Might there be some setting that I'm just missing, for BIOS to handle those two non-raid disks as normal SATA Disks, and two raid disks as RAID?

 

Specs for PC:
ASUS Prime B760M-K D4

Intel Core i3-12100F

Some G.Skill DDR4

 

Thanks for any help!

[Maastonakki]

Ok, replying to my own post, maybe this could be helpful for some one some day.

 

I believe the root cause for Windows boot working was that on new 12th gen platform, when using Intel Rapid Storage system (Intel VDM), that should be enabled while installing the OS, and those VDM drivers should be installed during OS install.

 

Since my windows install was like 9 years old, there obviously wasn't drivers for latest VDM. Why the whole boot drive disappeared when VDM was enabled, I have no idea. For safety reason I decided to take 1:1 copy of my OS drive, just in case if I somehow f-up the whole disk, I still have way to restore it in same state as it was.

 

For my surprise, I went and attached copy of my original drive to system, and bazinga, boot drive got visible even with VDM Enabled. Thou when I tried to boot into windows, I got BSOD with error about couldn't find bootable image.

 

Well, at least I got step forward. Next I managed to google article about installing intel VDM driver to existing windows install (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1151478/install-intel-vmd-driver-into-windows-10-system-af)

I went and booted Windows 10 install from USB, and entered trouble shooting section and opened command prompt. I copied Intel VDM Drivers on same USB stick, for being able to install them with DISM.

Running DISM Command 

dism /image:C:\ /add-driver /driver:X:\RST\Driver\drivername.inf

I got message  that driver was successfully installed in windows image.

 

I crossed my fingers and booted, with original windows boot loader. 

 

I run into one last error about some windows system32 boot file, and ended up to screen where I was able to choose OS where to boot. I chose my Windows 10 install, and booted on Safemode with Networking. Safemode started, and then I was able to install VDM drivers properly with Intel "SetupRST.exe" installer.

 

One more boot, and damn. It's all just like before old MB broke. Even the original Intel Raid is working, and is showing as it should, and even Steam is able to find library from there.

 

As a final note for self. Even if it's your wife's PC, go and setup some kind of backup system in place, so you don't need to spend a week and countless hours of digging second pages of Google, Windows forums, Reddit and others for clues, how to rescue that data.

[Robchil]

the main reason you have a problem are that most bios'es saves raid drivers to bios for boot. and with a new build there are no PE drivers. 

most get them installed when loading drivers during disk selection screen.  It could have shortened the setup if you starten an install to load drivers. and rebooted at disk selection. 

 

i'm not realy sure where drivers are saved, but it could be just old drivers and newer unsupported hardware.. they might put the drivers on the drives too. 

i have used raid0 on my system drives since 2018.. nvme's.. and had to swap from an asus z370 board to z390.. and i was able to boot without doing anything.. but on older installes i've had to load new intel drivers. on swap between vendors, drives had to be reinstalled usually.. but i've seen that work too.. 

 

anyway.. in my bios it has a section about retaining disk controller drivers in bios or not.