Question HDD dead after updating BIOS?

[andiabrudan]

Hi everyone,

I have 2 mechanical hard disks from Seagate (each 2TB) in RAID0. The RAID configuration is achieved through the motherboard (MSI MEG Z690 ACE), not from windows.
I've decided to update the motherboard BIOS, going from 7D27v18 → 7D27v1A.
After completing the update, there's a message when I start the computer:

Abnormal status reported by Rapid Storage Technology UEFI driver

And sure enough, one of the 2 HDDs is now missing, causing the volume to stop working:

https://imgur.com/KDPrH1A

In the BIOS, I can see a similar thing. The RAID volume shows as failed and the second HDD is missing:

https://imgur.com/mhoc6Gf

I see no option to repair the volume as the disk is missing as if it were faulty.

However, if I go into the Create RAID volume menu, I can still see the other faulty HDD:

https://imgur.com/skDi0ki

I have a feeling this is only an issue with BIOS, and not the hard disk itself. Unfortunately, I don't have a second PC to test the disks individually.
I had a similar experience a while back when I updated the BIOS to 7D27v18, but I didn't put 2 and 2 together at that time. I had deleted the volume and tested with one HDD then the other to see if they were actually faulty, but again, one of the disks did not show up.

Any ideas what I could do in this situation?

 

[lvt]

Can you test the HDD with one of the SATA port on your computer?

 

[USAFRet]

The BIOS update did not physically kill the HDD.
Rather, it most likely screwed the RAID 0 settings.

This is when you reconfigure the RAID array, and recover the data from your backup.

 

[andiabrudan]

Thank you for the replies.

Can you test the HDD with one of the SATA port on your computer?

I've done as you requested and booted into BIOS with only 1 of the HDDs, then the other.
Here are the results:

• First, I unplugged the bad HDD (at random)
  The other HDD shows up ok in the RAID menu and there was no message Abnormal status reported by Rapid Storage Technology UEFI driver at startup
  

  https://imgur.com/IDnrE3K

  https://imgur.com/M7Ro4Gk

• Then I switched them around and I got the "Abnormal status" message
  

  https://imgur.com/jdjXtsS

  https://imgur.com/fzHF97p

This is when you reconfigure the RAID array, and recover the data from your backup.

Any idea how to do that? I haven't seen any option to recover the array in the BIOS. I don't necessarily need the data (though I'd prefer not to wipe it).
From what I remember last time this happened, I still wasn't able to use the bad HDD even after deleting the array.

 

[andiabrudan]

Update on this:

I was able to find a similar post that helped me: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?...reset-breaks-raid-volume.378783/#post-2146439
(last comment)

The steps I followed are similar to what is described in the comment, but I'll expand here as well.
I just want to prefix this by mentioning I was not able to recover the partition metadata and restore it completely. Just the data on it.

The steps are as follows:
1. Boot into BIOS
2. Go into Settings\Advanced\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology
3. Select the failed RAID volume
4. Delete the volume (as the forum link above mentions, this will only delete the metadata, and not the data on the disk)
5. Back in the main RAID menu, observe that the other disk is now recognized
6. Recreate the RAID with the exact same settings of the deleted array
7. Save and reboot into Windows
7.5 (Note: You won't see your RAID disk in Windows. At this moment, it is an unformatted disk with data still on it)
8. Use a data recovery tool like TestDisk to copy the data off the RAID and onto another disk
9. Use the disk manager to format the RAID drive
(optional) 10. Copy the data back to the (now formatted) RAID

I'm not sure if TestDisk (or any other tool) can recreate the metadata (NTFS partition table) on the RAID disk somehow, so you don't have to go through the trouble of copying data back and forward.