Fixing Intel rapid storage technology cache raid

[yodapwnedjoo]

ok so i have a asus p8z77-pro , 2 1tb western digitals.& 2 120gb ssd drives.

my setup was a 120gb ssd for os and small programs, 1 1tb used as storage
and the other 1tb drive was my steam install .with the second ssd being used as cache drive using intels rapid storage technology.


I installed windows 8.1 to check it out and when i switched back to good ole windows7 my steam drive was gone as well as the remaining 64gb usable partition.
they show up in the bios and in the intel rapid storage program
But they do not show up in windows at all either in device manager or in administrative disk tools .
intels rapid storage technology.
(has an explanation mark next to both of these drives, which states that : intel rst controller 0 incompatible)

I read that a possibly fix was to delete the cache partition on the ssd, and that would fix the problem , i inserted the windows disk and got to where you select what drive you want to install windows on and I used that screen to delete the cache partition and the remaining and formatted the ssd clean.
(before formatting it there was a message stating that it could not install to the ssd because the ntfs file system was incompatible to install windows onto?)
I formatted the ssd ,However this did not work and i still cannot see the drives in windows.
I tried disconnecting the cache ssd to no avail as well.

I notticed while i was reinstalling windows 7 it went to a cmd prompt randomly during the end of windows install and looked like chkdsk was running (mabey that messed it up somehow , I was thinking it might have been possible that the sata setting in bios could have been set to ahci at this time instead of raid)


Any ideas ? preferably without loosing all the data on the 1tb harddrive ??
cant think of anything else . bios is in raid mode, intel and asmedia drivers all installed.
sorry if this post is hard to read , been at this for like 8 hours and am barely awake now Lol

 

[Bubbaleone]

This sounds like your current IRST driver may have issues with 8.1. I'd suggest you first download the latest Intel RST driver that's compatible with your system, uninstall the current Intel AHCI/RAID driver, reboot, then install the new driver If the installed Intel RAID driver is currently corrupt, it would explain why Windows doesn't see your array. A cleanly installed, updated driver should tell you if your data is corrupt or whether the array can simply be repaired via the IRST console.

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[yodapwnedjoo]

after uninstalling the intel drivers and re-booting both drives show up and seem to work fine individually running off the Microsoft drivers.
the cache ssd was formatted soo it shows as a empty ready to use drive and the 1tb shows everything it had in it .
But as soon as i install the intel drivers they disapear again other than in the rst program showing:
sata ssd on controller 0, port 1: incompatible
sata disk on controller 0, port 2: incompatible
drivers im using :
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows 7 *&DownloadType=

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows 7 *&DownloadType=

running windows 7 home premium 64 bit

 

[Bubbaleone]

after uninstalling the intel drivers and re-booting both drives show up and seem to work fine individually running off the Microsoft drivers.
the cache ssd was formatted soo it shows as a empty ready to use drive and the 1tb shows everything it had in it .
But as soon as i install the intel drivers they disapear again other than in the rst program showing:
sata ssd on controller 0, port 1: incompatible
sata disk on controller 0, port 2: incompatible
drivers im using :
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows 7 *&DownloadType=

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows 7 *&DownloadType=

running windows 7 home premium 64 bit

What's the make and exact model number of the SSDs you're running? Some SSDs require a firmware update in order to be compatible and IRST is telling you that those drives aren't.

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[yodapwnedjoo]

The thing is they were working fine before i switched over to windows 8.1
at this point I would be happy to figure out how to get rid of whatever is telling the drives that they are in a raid together so i can install the intel sata driver and just use the drives individually but i cant figure out how to do that.
I figured formatting the ssd would do it and it didnt :/
I see nothing in the intel program to do any sort of tests or an irst console to repair anything


the drive I was using as cache drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820239045

the os drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA0AT11G6302

and 2 1tb caviar black drives

 

[Bubbaleone]

The thing is they were working fine before i switched over to windows 8.1
at this point I would be happy to figure out how to get rid of whatever is telling the drives that they are in a raid together so i can install the intel sata driver and just use the drives individually but i cant figure out how to do that.
I figured formatting the ssd would do it and it didnt :/
I see nothing in the intel program to do any sort of tests or an irst console to repair anything


the drive I was using as cache drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820239045

the os drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA0AT11G6302

and 2 1tb caviar black drives

You should still upgrade the firmware on both drives, as Kingston and Crucial both have updated firmware available for download. If the WD Black was part of a previous array; which RAID were you running and how did you configure it? (RAID configuration should be performed using the Intel option ROM setup utility, during boot). You need to perform a secure erase on those two SSDs and diskpart is the tool to use. Open an elevated command prompt and type the following commands (press Enter after each):

diskpart (starts the utility)

list disk (lists all connected drives by number i.e., Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.)

select disk # (where # is your SSD)

clean all (secure erase)

exit (exits diskpart)

(Close the command prompt window)

The clean all command performs a secure erase, that is, every sector is overwritten and the drive is in a raw state when finished, any hidden data that 8.1 may have created will be gone, and the SSDs will now be ready for use as cache or OS disks.

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[yodapwnedjoo]

they were put into a raid by the intel rapid storage program i guess, when i clicked accelerate to enable the ssd to cache my steam harddrive.
I used diskpart and it fixed the ssd that was having problems
however the 1tb steam drive still is having the same problems...
not showing up in device manager when the intel rst program is installed.
this is what rst is showing now
http://i.imgur.com/nOjSmvM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dasuHux.jpg

 

[Bubbaleone]

they were put into a raid by the intel rapid storage program i guess, when i clicked accelerate to enable the ssd to cache my steam harddrive.
I used diskpart and it fixed the ssd that was having problems
however the 1tb steam drive still is having the same problems...
not showing up in device manager when the intel rst program is installed.
this is what rst is showing now
http://i.imgur.com/nOjSmvM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dasuHux.jpg

Device manager looks good; both SSDs and the HDD are correctly identified but, the IRST console shows two 1TB drives with one marked as "incompatible". I suspect that your UEFI/BIOS SATA settings are now SATA/AHCI rather than SATA/RAID. Since you would've needed to enable SATA/RAID mode in order to install SSD caching (also known as Intel Smart Response Technology) in the first place, clearing the CMOS has restored the default SATA/AHCI mode, thus making your 1TB drive "incompatible" with the Intel AHCI controller. You need to renable RAID mode in both Windows and UEFI/BIOS. You can do this without having to reinstall Windows, and the fix is pretty simple:

Exit all other Windows-based programs then open regedit and locate the following subkeys:
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor
.

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1. In the right-hand pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
2. In the Value data box, type 0 [3 is default], and then click OK.
3. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.
4. Restart your computer and IMMEDIATELy enter the UEFI/BIOS setup.
5. Enable SATA/RAID mode, then save and reboot the PC.
6. Once booted to the desktop; a second restart will be required to finish the RAID driver installation.

Once you get this done post back with the outcome. And keep in mind that should you inadvertently boot back into Windows, without switching to SATA/RAID mode in the UEFI/BIOS, you'll have to repeat from the beginning.

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[yodapwnedjoo]

Thanks for all your help!!!! . I got everything working

the bios was in raid mode already , but i tried changing the values in regedit to 0's and rebooted and selected raid again just to make sure, and it booted into windows like normal , nothing changed or asked me to reboot. and the problem was still there.

I rebooted anyways just to make sure and I noticed the raid configuration screen that used to flash while booting wasn't there anymore , like the bios was still in ahci mode even though raid was selected and saved as the setting I wanted...(bios somehow got corrupted ?)

So i downloaded the newest bios for my motherboard ,flashed it. and I got a screen like this upon rebooting :
http://i.imgur.com/ZgIynSe.jpg
it didnt show the raid volumes like it does now in the image , but I pressed ctrl-I
To enter the configuration utility and it immediately said that the drive on port 2 was missing its cache acceleration drive and if i wanted to remove the acceleration volume from it. I clicked yes and rebooted.

Entering windows I re-installed intel rst , deleted the volume from the cache ssd so it was ready for the raid cache . and rebooted.

Last up was configuring intel rst program. went without a hitch and now everything is set up correctly.
http://i.imgur.com/nGNndj2.jpg

 

[Bubbaleone]

Nice!...appears the BIOS update either corrected the possibly corrupt previous version and/or added support that wasn't available in the previous version. I'm glad you got it sorted.

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