Question Lost RAID 0 after BIOS Upgrade, can I recover it?

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Kurgan2

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May 16, 2023
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I bought a PC from Cyberpower, had them put in 2 SSD's and a RAID 0 setup of 2 8TB drives. The motherboard is an MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI with an i9-14900KF CPU. Since the i9's are having problems, I figured I'd update the BIOS to get the fixes Intel has put out.

However, after the upgrade to version E7E061MS.AF0 my computer no longer recognizes the RAID 0 drive. The letter is there, it's my E: drive, but when click it it tells me I need to format the disk before I can use it. I need the data on this disk, all the legal documents pertaining to my father's estate are on it, for starters, along with a lot of other things I can't afford to lose.

In BIOS, I show 2 ST800NT001-3L drives in SATA P3 and P4, which are the drives in the RAID setup. I also have my 2 SSD drives, Kingston SNV2S (or SNV25, I can't read my own handwriting) in M2_1 and M2_3.

I put the question to MSI and was advised to turn VMD back on as the update would have set the system back to defaults. I did so, and as you can guess since I'm here, with no success. When I turn on VMD, all my drives vanish, so the system can't boot. I tried making a bootable thumb drive and booting through that with VMD on in hopes I could use the command prompt to copy the files to a 14TB external I just bought so I could try this, but even with VMD on in BIOS, when I boot from the thumb drive and go into cmd, I can't see the RAID drive, just the 2 SSDs, the thumb drive and the USB connected 14TB external.

Please tell me there's something I can do to recover the data from the RAID drive.
 
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Kurgan2 said:
I need the data on this disk, all the legal documents pertaining to my father's estate are on it, for starters, along with a lot of other things I can't afford to lose.
Click to expand...
Putting important legal documents on RAID 0 and having no backup.

66897902-ff294000-efc5-11e9-9f07-bde0702897cc.jpg
 
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Because they had that option when configuring the PC, and didn't have one for 2 seperate 8TB drives on top of the 2 4TB drives I already had. I didn't know squat about RAID other than if I chose it I could have a ton of storage space. No clue why they offer it on a gaming PC if it's not meant for home use.

And yes, thank you, pointing out it's my own fault is just as helpful as the post by SkyNetRising.

I was kind of hoping for some tech help, not more stress and blame.
 
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This is not someplace that you can perform some sort of software handwavium magic and recover your lost data. As already outlined, you will spend a large amount (likely into the thousands) just for an estimate on whether or not recovery is possible, with up to several thousand more for any recovery (you pay the full recovery cost even if they only recover a single unusable byte ).
 
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This is about the only thing I can think of that may have a chance.

RAID Recovery Software - the only FREE tool

Need to recover a failed RAID? Do not rush to send it to a lab, try our read-only free RAID recovery software which recovers most common RAID types.
www.freeraidrecovery.com www.freeraidrecovery.com

But...whether this works or not...please please please undo this RAID, and just have them as two individual 8TB drives.

And then, start a comprehensive, automated, backup routine.
 
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@Kurgan2

Not a technical response.

And surely the estate lawyers and/or courts will be able to provide copies of those documents.

Likely not free. - but hopefully much less expensive than an attempted data recovery.

What about other family members or interested parties? They may have copies as well.....

Every little bit can help....
 
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If you're very lucky, all your data on the two 8TB drives will still be intact, unless you've formatted them (which hopefully is not the case).

CAUTION, Messing around could prevent a professional recovery agency from getting your data back.

It's not clear whether or not your two Kingston NV2S NVMe drives are also set up in RAID0. Are they amongst these drives?
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-nv2-ssd

You've already tried booting up from a USB memory stick. What OS did you use? Linux?

A different course of action might be to install a fresh copy of Windows on a cheap 120GB SATA SSD inside the PC, with VMD enabled in the BIOS and ALL other drives disconnected. This means physically removing the two NVMe SSDs from the motherboard and unplugging the SATA and power leads from the two 8TB hard disks.

You'll need to pre-load the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (ISRT/VMD) driver before installing Windows, as described in this guide.

https://www.msi.com/faq/notebook-1995

To quote from the guide:-

When the VMD Controller option in the BIOS menu is enabled, it's required to load the IRST driver to make {sure} the disks or RAID arrays can be recognized during Windows installation.

Download the ISRT/VMD driver from the MSI web site (or possibly from the Intel web site) to a USB stick.
1). Plug this "ISRT F6 driver" stick into the computer.
2). Plug a bootable Windows 10 installation USB stick into another port and set the BIOS to boot from this stick. Windows 10 will be easier to set up with a Local Account than Windows 11.
3). Choose the "Load driver" option as described in section 2 of the guide, browse to the stick with the ISRT/VMD driver and load the driver.
4). The 120GB SATA SSD should now become visible to the Windows installation setup program.
5). Install Windows, then remove both USB sticks and see if you can boot to the Windows desktop from the 120GB SATA SSD.
6). If the new version of Windows 10 works, shut down the PC and reconnect the two 8TB drives.
7). Boot up the PC and see if the RAID0 volume is now visible.
8). Copy the data to your new 14TB drive.

If the above does not work, let the professionals attempt a recovery. Assuming the data is really important, it's a price you'll have to pay.

Good luck.

Just remember, DO NOT FORMAT THE 8TB HARD DISKS.

https://edc.intel.com/content/www/u...02/intel-volume-management-device-technology/
 
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First off, thanks to all who suggested ways to fix this mess.

The disaster has been averted for $60. Found ReclaiMe software which took the two drives and rebuilt the data from them onto the new 14TB external I got for that purpose. Took about 4 days, but everything's there.

And no, no plans to make them a RAID again. Just did that because I couldn't add 2 more drives in the configurator, but could add the 2 as a RAID. Don't ask me why they did it that way, I just wanted space. 😉

Now I just have to figure out how to make them both show, because right now My Computer has my C: and D: SSD's, an E: drive that tells me it needs to be formatted before I can use it because it has no recognized file system, and then my 2 externals. So it seems to be missing the 2nd drive that used to be part of the RAID. Both physical drives show in Device Manager. Perhaps I have to format E: as a regular drive now? That might let the system see a second drive once the first ex-RAID is formatted. I'll hold off on that a bit to see if anyone here has thoughts on the matter. Again, data is backed up, so formatting is now acceptable.
 
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To be honest, people may bash this, but for an average user, OneDrive is good. At work we have the plan where each person gets 1tb. We set it up to sync desktop, documents and pictures. At least in a situation like this you could log in online and find the data that was synced.

But you are very fortunate that you got your data back. Traditional wisdom is that you really don’t want to mess with things in that situation because the more reads and writes you do, the more stress you are putting on the drives if they are failing, as well as the fact you can accidentally overwrite or corrupt your data.

Glad it’s worked out.
 
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Kurgan2 said:
So it seems to be missing the 2nd drive that used to be part of the RAID.
Click to expand...
Try checking the drives in Windows Disk Management.

As with any disk tool, be VERY careful not to wipe/delete/format anything on your Windows boot drive.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-initialize-a-hard-drive-in-windows

Kurgan2 said:
Perhaps I have to format E: as a regular drive now?
Click to expand...
Before you can Format a drive, it needs to be configured with a "Partition", either MBR or GPT. This is known as Initializing the disk. For drives larger than 2GB, you should use GPT.

Select-Partition-Style-for-Selected-Disks.jpg


https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

It's possible your old ex-RAID drive does not contain a "standard" MBR or GPT partition, so you will have to rectify the situation. Read the Windows Club guide.

When you have Initilized the old RAID disk (MBR or GPT), you can Format it (NTFS) and Assign a spare drive letter.

Any problems, post a screen shot from Disk Management here.


CAUTION.

Do NOT mess around with the drive containing Windows Drive C:, or you may have to re-install Windows.

Unplug all other drives, apart from your Windows boot drive and the problematic ex-RAID drive. That way you won't destroy any data by mistake.
 
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Ok, this is what I have in Disk Management. Disk 0 is D: the SSD I install and run programs from, Disk 1 is obviously C: my Windows install. Disk 2 seems to think the RAID still exists, because the space on it is actually the two hard drives combined. And then Disk 3 is one of the ex-RAID drives. The last two are my externals, so aren't important to this. Should I initialize E: to try and get it to realize it's an 8 TB drive and not a 16?

Sadly, I have apparently become an old person who doesn't understand this newfangled techy stuff, so all I can provide is a link to the disk manager picture on my Google drive and not an inline picture like I wanted to do. It's strange, I used to actually know things. 😛

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gIHsToUdS00bVraPwZnZwcMelT9Az4gQ/view?usp=sharing
 
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There is little or no benefit in installing programs on a different drive than the OS.
Especially with drive the size you have.


For the Disk 2 E drive, yes. Delete, initialize, format, whatever...get rid of any thoughts of the old RAID 0.
 
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USAFRet said:
There is little or no benefit in installing programs on a different drive than the OS.
Especially with drive the size you have.


For the Disk 2 E drive, yes. Delete, initialize, format, whatever...get rid of any thoughts of the old RAID 0.
Click to expand...

One exception I'd say is if a user is a gamer and uses steam. If you install your games to a secondary drive and have to reformat the C drive, it's useful to be able in steam to install the game but point it back to the secondary drive. Steam when I've done this on my PC seems to recognize the files are there and buzzes through most of the install without having to redownload everything. If someone has a slow connection that can save a lot of time.
 
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ohio_buckeye said:
One exception I'd say is if a user is a gamer and uses steam. If you install your games to a secondary drive and have to reformat the C drive, it's useful to be able in steam to install the game but point it back to the secondary drive. Steam when I've done this on my PC seems to recognize the files are there and buzzes through most of the install without having to redownload everything. If someone has a slow connection that can save a lot of time.
Click to expand...
Games on the Steam platform and similar are the ONE exception to that.

The Steam client would go with regular programs and the OS.
The game content can live anywhere.
 
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Kurgan2 said:
The disaster has been averted for $60. Found ReclaiMe software which took the two drives and rebuilt the data from them onto the new 14TB external I got for that purpose. Took about 4 days, but everything's there.
Click to expand...
Phhheeee---eewww. When I began reading this thread just now I was going to suggest you should have luck with a relatively inexpensive data recovery since the issue sounded more like a RAID controller issue than a disk fault. Luck here being the operative word.

So your data is now on the 14 TB external. Before discussing what disks to format and how, what other copies do you have of your vital data? If the only copies are on the external, prioritise further backups.
 
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Yep, the reason for the seperate drive is mainly space, I keep a _lot_ of games installed at once and didn't want to end up crowding Windows.

Oh yes, all the legal stuff is also taking up residence on a thumb drive in particular, and regular backups of the rest. Guess it's good luck, but since starting with the Commodore PET and cassette drive in elementary school up to my current oversized monster, this is the first time I've ever almost lost important data so just never bothered with backups. Lesson learned, and fortunately without breaking the bank. :)
 
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