[SOLVED] Raid 1 on Windows 10 with non-functional Intel RST app

[DavidSchwegler]

Hi,

I built this machine in Windows 7, and upgraded to Win 10 a few years ago. I had setup SSDs and HDDs in Raid 1. I think I used the Intel RST app to set it up (or at least monitor it...maybe I set it up in the bios directly?). However, at some point RST updated to a version that didn't work on my PC. It always shows "Intel RST service is not running" in the taskbar, and I'm unable to open the application. When I attempt to launch it, it does a UAC prompt for IAStorUI.exe, but then nothing happens. Intel says there's a new version of the app available (Latest Version: 14.8.16.1063, Installed Version: 14.8.0.1042), but attempting to install it gives an error that my platform isn't supported.

I've seen a lot of threads about this, but none that I've found that really match my situation.

My questions

1. What (if anything) should I do about this? I feel uncomfortable not knowing the status of the disks. Is Intel RST still one of the best options for Raid and disk health management or should I consider something else I should use? I'm sort of a set-it-and-forget-it guy, so I don't need anything fancy.
2. It sounds like maybe it's time to upgrade my motherboard and/or cpu for compatibility? Is there anything I should do/expect when upgrading motherboard to make sure I don't break the raid status or potentially introduce errors? (Meaning, literally anything after pulling them out of one board and sticking them in the new one...).

Many thanks!

Build
OS: Windows 10 Pro v1903 18362.267
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
CPU: Intel i7-3770-K
RAM: 16GB (4x G.SKILL Sniper Series 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1866 PC3 14900)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X
Disks:

• (2x SSD in Raid 1): SanDisk Ultra II 480GB
• (2x HDD in Raid 1): WD5003ABYX 500GB
• (1x SSD): Crucial RealSSD 256 GB

 

[popatim]

version 13.1.0.1058 was the last to support Z77

 

[DavidSchwegler]

version 13.1.0.1058 was the last to support Z77

Hi, thank you, should I find a way to uninstall the version I have and re-install that one?

 

[popatim]

Yes. Since it isn't currently working, you have nothing to lose.
Hopefully the old version works with the new w10 version.

 

[DavidSchwegler]

Yes. Since it isn't currently working, you have nothing to lose.
Hopefully the old version works with the new w10 version.

Uh. Uh oh. Well apparently I had a lot to lose. I really need help now!

Here's what happened

1. I uninstalled the old RST app (it wouldn't let me uninstall the drivers). Rebooted. Installed the new app. Rebooted.
2. At boot Windows sat in a spinner for about an hour. I assumed something got stuck, so I power cycled
3. At reboot it hit me with an automatic fixing your disk repair thing (I forget the exact screens sorry) and then got stuck in a loop of "preparing automatic repair" -> "diagnosing your PC" -> "couldn't repair your PC".
4. I have tried entering safe mode but I can't -- selecting that option triggers the same loop.
5. It says there's not any system restore points found to restore to
6. I booted into another drive (that has win 7 on it) and it says the drive hosting win 10 "is not accessible...Access denied".
   
7. I tried booting into win 10 again, and now my win 10 drive goes straight to recovery saying "your PC/device needs to be repaired...operating system could not be loaded because a file is missing or contains errors...file \windows\system32\winload.exe errorcode 0xc0000225....you'll need to use recovery tools".
8. I rebooted back to win 7 and at boot it tried to do a consistency check on some drive named just with a guid and started deleting files like crazy so I immediately power cycled to stop it since I had no idea what it was doing

Should I try booting the Win 10 install from USB media? Should I pull one of the raid drives out before trying things? I'm not really a raid expert so I don't know what state my drives are in. That is, I don't know if trying to run that particular version of IRST broke the raid configuration or "just" broke the windows 10 install.

TLDR: I can no longer boot to my Win 10 install RAID drives (the two 500gb SSDs). From my Win 7 drive (the 256gb non-raid SSD), I can't access the Win 10 drives either, though I can still access my storage RAID drives (the two 500gb HDDs).