Question Find status of RAID 1 SSD drives in Windows 11 Pro?

[David Knapp]

About a year ago, I had a Win 11 Pro PC built using an Asus TUF Gaming Z790 WiFi motherboard, two Samsung ST4000DX005-3GH101 drives in RAID 1 configuration and an Intel Raptor Lake CPU. A week or so ago, it rebooted and Windows would not start, with an error message saying no bootable drives found. I rebooted manually and it came up OK. This week, Windows is saying it cannot activate and did I change the hardware? I am wondering if one of the SSD drives failed and it reverted to using one of the mirrored drives? The Samsung Magician software does not recognize mirrored drives - I knew that. I don't know if the builder used software or hardware mirroring - my bad. While I research that, is there any software that would recognize the drive status and give me any insight into the reason for the activation issue and, perhaps, some more info on the drive mirroring? Windows 11 Pro does not seem to have anything useful. I haven't found anything on the Asus site either.

 

[USAFRet]

Reason #462 of why a good backup routine is needed.
And in the consumer space, RAID, of any type, is rarely needed.


Disregarding activation status, does the system run?

 

[David Knapp]

Reason #462 of why a good backup routine is needed.
And in the consumer space, RAID, of any type, is rarely needed.


Disregarding activation status, does the system run?

Yes, it seems to run fine, but there is an "Activation required" message that pops up on the desktop and Setup When I go into setup, the activation option fails and tells me to contact support. On reboot, I did see that the MB is using Intel RAID 1 and that it seems to be OK. I hear you about the consumer space RAID, but I come from a corporate RAID background and have seen plenty of posts about SSD drives failing early. It was working fine and did activate when the system was built, but some sort of Windows update on the 29th seems to have not worked correctly with RAID drives, at least that is a guess. I do keep cloud backups of important docs and photos, but wanted to tinker with RAID 1 on my new toy. I did look at Disk Manager and do see the RAID under Intel RAID 1 volume properties with no errors. That is buried way down in the Events log of the Disk 0 properties. There is also a message about settings migrated from prior OS installation. Perhaps somewhere along the way that clobbered the activation info. In Setup System Activation, it shows "No product key was found on my device". However, in the About screen, it does show the product ID and device ID fields.
The Windows version is 24H2, installed on 1/29/2025. The RAID actually seems to be operating OK, so perhaps that has nothing to do with the activation status.

 

[USAFRet]

Even with a fully functioning RAID 1, a good backup routine is still needed.
The RAID only protects against physical drive fail. It does little or nothing to protect against all the other forms of data loss.
Given a proper backup routine, a full drive image can be recovered to a replacement drive in an hour or so. If you suffer that downtime, the RAID isn't needed at all.

In the corporate world, sure. Downtime might = lost sales, or idle developers. $$$
But even in the corp world, a RAID 1 is supported with a real backup.

As far as "SSD drives failing early" ...no.
SSDs are proving to be more reliable than HDDs.

Lastly, I doubt the RAID functionality has anything to do with the activation status.

 

[USAFRet]

There is also a message about settings migrated from prior OS installation. Perhaps somewhere along the way that clobbered the activation info.

That might be the issue.

But not knowing where the OS install came from, how he did it, or how that RAID is instantiated...all speculation.

 

[Misgar]

Perhaps somewhere along the way that clobbered the activation info. In Setup System Activation, it shows "No product key was found on my device". However, in the About screen, it does show the product ID and device ID fields.

A 25-character Activation key is often required to install Windows, but it doesn't constitute a valid License to use the OS. This is explained in greater detail here.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-your-windows-license-legal-should-you-even-care/

A Product ID is not the same as a Product (Activation) key. As for the Device ID, I think Microsoft just like to make things complicated.

If you purchased a so-called "genuine" copy of Windows at a knock down price of $12 to $20, you probably ended up with an Activation key split from a multi-user Volume or Educational License, resold against Microsoft's convoluted Terms and Conditions. My apologies if you bought your PC from a large company with Windows preinstalled or paid full price for a Windows 11 license from Amazon or an approved Microsoft supplier (typically $90 for Home and $180 for Professional).

There's always the chance that Microsoft has become aware 1,000+ home users are all using the same mis-sold Volume/Education Activation key and revoked the License from their update servers. That might be the reason why your Windows is no longer showing Activated. It could equally well be you've changed too many items of hardware and Microsoft think you're using a single license on multiple machines.

As a temporary measure until you get things sorted out, you could use one of Microsoft's Generic keys. These do not constitute a License and there are restrictions on their use, including customization and watermarks. When you find your original (legitimate) License and associated Activation key, you can change back from the Generic key.
https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/list_of_generic_keys_to_use_in_windows_10.html

In Setup System Activation, it shows "No product key was found on my device". However, in the About screen, it does show the product ID and device ID fields.

I find Aida64 handy for showing Windows Product ID, Product Key and Product Activation (WPA) status, in the Operating System section.
https://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64xe

 

[SkyNetRising]

two Samsung ST4000DX005-3GH101 drives in RAID 1 configuration
The Samsung Magician software does not recognize mirrored drives - I knew that.

ST4000DX005 is Seagate (not Samsung).
Samsung Magician has nothing to do with it.

 

[David Knapp]

After some more looking around, I found that the Intel Rapid Storage Technology app answered my RAID questions. The RAID 1 is fine. The drives are each Samsung SSD 990 Pro 2TB.

A 25-character Activation key is often required to install Windows, but it doesn't constitute a valid License to use the OS. This is explained in greater detail here.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-your-windows-license-legal-should-you-even-care/

A Product ID is not the same as a Product (Activation) key. As for the Device ID, I think Microsoft just like to make things complicated.

If you purchased a so-called "genuine" copy of Windows at a knock down price of $12 to $20, you probably ended up with an Activation key split from a multi-user Volume or Educational License, resold against Microsoft's convoluted Terms and Conditions. My apologies if you bought your PC from a large company with Windows preinstalled or paid full price for a Windows 11 license from Amazon or an approved Microsoft supplier (typically $90 for Home and $180 for Professional).

There's always the chance that Microsoft has become aware 1,000+ home users are all using the same mis-sold Volume/Education Activation key and revoked the License from their update servers. That might be the reason why your Windows is no longer showing Activated. It could equally well be you've changed too many items of hardware and Microsoft think you're using a single license on multiple machines.

As a temporary measure until you get things sorted out, you could use one of Microsoft's Generic keys. These do not constitute a License and there are restrictions on their use, including customization and watermarks. When you find your original (legitimate) License and associated Activation key, you can change back from the Generic key.
https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/list_of_generic_keys_to_use_in_windows_10.html


I find Aida64 handy for showing Windows Product ID, Product Key and Product Activation (WPA) status, in the Operating System section.
https://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64

 

[David Knapp]

When downloading, I get a warning that "this product could harm your device". That does not happen with other downloads. Do you know what is going on there? It happens on the EXE version. The zip version does not do this.

 

[USAFRet]

When downloading, I get a warning that "this product could harm your device". That does not happen with other downloads. Do you know what is going on there? It happens on the EXE version. The zip version does not do this.

Downloading what?

 

[David Knapp]

Downloading what?

Aida64.exe evaluation copy is what I was downloading from one of their mirror sites. Sorry for leaving that out. Instead, I downloaded the Aida64.zip version and scanned it after extracting. Looked good. However, when running, the item I was most interested was replaced on the report by the words [ TRIAL VERSION ]. So, without paying the full fee, which would be about half of what I would pay for a new copy of Windows, the Aida64 app won't help. It does look like a very comprehensive app. Had I not retired from IT, would probably like to buy it. Thanks for the heads-up on it though. Using a different route, I discovered the existing key is 5 sets of BBBBB, which is probably not going to be useful for activation. I believe it has something to do with a corporate version. I have the sales slip for the OEM version I bought, but it does not have the key on it. Thanks for your help.

 

[Misgar]

I have the sales slip for the OEM version I bought, but it does not have the key on it.

Did you pay full price and buy the OEM version direct from Microsoft, Amazon, or another official supplier?

If you reinstall Windows on a spare drive, as soon as you connect to the Internet, Windows should check your hardware against the Microsoft servers and if it finds a pretty close or exact match, the OS will automatically Activate itself.

During Windows re-installation, I usually click "I do not have a key" and let Microsoft re-activate the OS when it recognises the hardware.

25 B's is not a "proper" Microsoft code in my book! If you do ever need to check on another system, here are a few options.

I've been using a number of Nirsoft's apps for years, one of which is Product Key Scanner. You may get a pop screen from Microsoft asking if you trust this app. I answer Yes, but it's up to you.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_key_scanner.html

There are loads of other utilities which can retrieve your Product Key from the Registry. This page shows several methods including links to the Nirsoft site.
https://www.howtogeek.com/660517/how-to-find-your-windows-10-product-key-using-the-command-prompt/

You might find Speccy can provide the Product Key (when valid), but I've not used Speccy for years.
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

 

[USAFRet]

Aida64.exe evaluation copy is what I was downloading from one of their mirror sites. Sorry for leaving that out. Instead, I downloaded the Aida64.zip version and scanned it after extracting. Looked good. However, when running, the item I was most interested was replaced on the report by the words [ TRIAL VERSION ]. So, without paying the full fee, which would be about half of what I would pay for a new copy of Windows, the Aida64 app won't help. It does look like a very comprehensive app. Had I not retired from IT, would probably like to buy it. Thanks for the heads-up on it though. Using a different route, I discovered the existing key is 5 sets of BBBBB, which is probably not going to be useful for activation. I believe it has something to do with a corporate version. I have the sales slip for the OEM version I bought, but it does not have the key on it. Thanks for your help.

Belarc Advisor can usually extract the license key.
https://www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor