Question My SSD system drive died and I'm trying to reattach the previous RAID disks without data loss ?

[RaidNewbie1951]

Hi,
I have an MSI Z790 Pro WIFI mobo. Windows 11 was installed on the SSD and a pair of Seagate HDD configured as RAID.
The SSD died. I am struggling to recreate the RAID setup.

I got off to a false start and don't seem to be able to go back. I was told to go into the BIOS setup screen and turn on VMD. When I do this the system doesn't show any disks and I cant install windows on the new SSD. MSI said I need to load the RAID drivers and sent me to a link for the Intel RST drivers. I cut a flash drive and proceeded to install the RST only to get an error trying to install the Optane driver from W11 (no error code).

Net net, 4 copies of windows 11 boot records and no windows 11 and no way I can see to completely reinitialize the SSD for a completely new clean attempt at this installation.

The data is important and not backed up recently (yeah I know DUMB!!!). But it's sitting on two perfectly fine hard drives I just can't get to.

Does anyone have any ideas where I go from here ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

a pair of Seagate HDD configured as RAID.
+
The data is important and not backed up recently (yeah I know DUMB!!!). But it's sitting on two perfectly fine hard drives I just can't get to.
RAID 0 array?

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

a pair of Seagate HDD configured as RAID.
+
The data is important and not backed up recently (yeah I know DUMB!!!). But it's sitting on two perfectly fine hard drives I just can't get to.
RAID 0 array?

Sorry, Raid 1, a pair of Mirror disks.

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Where was the offline backup for this?

 

[USAFRet]

How was this RAID 1 instantiated?
Hardware raid card, motherboard, software, Windows....?

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

Hi, The off-line back-up was not done. I got behind. Sorry. The RAID was set up at the time the PC was built using MSI tools on the motherboard . Its not windows Raid.

Do you need more info? Yes I know its my fault, but I honestly didn't expect a new SSD which is not used as a data store to crap out in 9 months, what I did expect was the possibly one of my Barracuda drives might fail.
Hence the RAID 1 config.

All of which is moot because I am where I am and need the missing data off the drive.

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Hi, The off-line back-up was not done. I got behind. Sorry. The RAID was set up at the time the PC was built using MSI tools on the motherboard . Its not windows Raid.

Do you need more info? Yes I know its my fault, but I honestly didn't expect a new SSD which is not used as a data store to crap out in 9 months, what I did expect was the possibly one of my Barracuda drives might fail.
Hence the RAID 1 config.

All of which is moot because I am where I am and need the missing data off the drive.

Thanks

So, you're trying to do a full OS install on a new SSD?
Do that with only the SSD connected. RAID selected in the motherboard BIOS.

Get past that, and then connect the two HDDs.

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

Thank you. That was exactly what I tried but when I selected RAID on the motherboard there were no disks visible except the 8GB flash drive with the O/S install. MSI told me to load the RST drivers at installation disk selection time. No drives still.

After trying various options with and without the sata discs installed I ended up with Window 11 in a loop creating Installation partitions and then reverting back to select a drive to install windows. At no point did I get far enough, as far as, I could tell that the Sata drives had been accessed. Most of the time they were not connected to avoid corruption.

The only time they were plugged in I switched to AHCI (sic) and saw both drives.

At this point I want to cleanse the SSD completely and start over.

My other thought has been to try to load one of the pair as a regular HDD in an older ASUS intel I5 and mount it with an offset (something I read but don't really know how to do) to bypass the MBR. Read the drive to another back-up source and then go back to trying to fix this AFTER I rescue the data.

Thoughts?

Thanks for taking the time to help

 

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the Partitions tab in DMDE?

https://dmde.com/

If you see your partition, d-click it and expand the $Root. Do you now see your file/folder tree?

 

[Moonstick2]

My other thought has been to try to load one of the pair as a regular HDD in an older ASUS intel I5 and mount it with an offset (something I read but don't really know how to do) to bypass the MBR. Read the drive to another back-up source and then go back to trying to fix this AFTER I rescue the data.

I'd even try that on your current computer - one of the HDD, no RAID in BIOS, connect it as a normal secondary drive - to see what happens. My understanding of RAID 1 was that, in most cases at least - a single drive of the pair should be readable as a standard secondary drive in any other computer.

That means first having your PC set up in a working state: only the OS drive (the SSD in your case), fresh install of Windows, no fancy stuff in BIOS, RAID disabled etc.

 

[popatim]

What does the Raid Controller (Pressing CTRL+I during POST) show?
If these were the only 2 drives in the system when you installed windows it should just be a matter of enabling raid in the bios, shutting down, and then booting up with the drives installed. The Raid config info is kept on the drives themselves so that info is picked up and should boot fine as long as they are on raided sata ports.

If there was another drive in the system when you installed windows then the Windows boot partition was probably on that and you'll have work to do to get the raid drives back up without it.

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

Thanks to all who responded. I'll try each option and see where they take me. It may be a while before I get through all that so I'll try to respond quickly but...
Thanks for the suggestions and help.

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

Can you show us the Partitions tab in DMDE?

https://dmde.com/

If you see your partition, d-click it and expand the $Root. Do you now see your file/folder tree?

Hi, that's a good suggestion I will down load the tool for future use. See below

 

[RaidNewbie1951]

I'd even try that on your current computer - one of the HDD, no RAID in BIOS, connect it as a normal secondary drive - to see what happens. My understanding of RAID 1 was that, in most cases at least - a single drive of the pair should be readable as a standard secondary drive in any other computer.

That means first having your PC set up in a working state: only the OS drive (the SSD in your case), fresh install of Windows, no fancy stuff in BIOS, RAID disabled etc.

Thanks for the great response.

I installed Windows 10 since Win 11 was giving me trouble. Powered up the first of the two HDD and turned on the machine. Bingo. There was the drive with its entire contents. ("Phew 😀").

Thanks, I'm now a bit smarter and probably more dangerous as a result. Data being backed up as I type. (Different machine)

Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions. I'll close this as resolved and go back to struggling with the RAID set-up. (And maybe I'll stick to Win 10 LOL.)

 

[USAFRet]

I'll close this as resolved and go back to struggling with the RAID set-up. (And maybe I'll stick to Win 10 LOL.)

In normal consumer use, there is little or no need for RAID, of any type.

Any RAID array needs good backup.
And if you have that, you don't really need the RAID.

RAID 1 is only good if you actually need uninterrupted uptime.
For instance, hosting a webstore, and unexpected downtime means lost sales.
RAID 1 would let the system limp along on one drive, until such time as you can schedule actual downtime to put in a new drive and let the array rebuild.

But few if any people really need that level of uptime.
With a good full drive backup, you can be up and running again in an hour or so, after slotting in a replacement drive.