SSD RAID - Windows isn't found

[nathaniel1968]

Hello,
This is my first time posting so I apologize in advance if I don't properly pose this question.

I built my own PC with 2 Crucial M4 64GB SSDs in a RAID 0 logical drive as the boot/Windows drive. Everything was fine for about eight months then yesterday I got a BSOD with the code 0x...F4. The machine automatically rebooted and a message about insert boot device came up. The RAID utility that comes up during post shows the Logical drive. I put in the Windows installation CD to try and repair but it doesn't detect an existing Windows installation. When I try the installation process, after adding the appropriate RAID drivers, the installer sees the drive so I think I could reinstall but I don't know how that would effect the data on the partition. I also have a logical data drive of two 2TB HDDs;if I reinstall on the SSDs will the data on those drives be lost? I also have an external drive that I had setup for Windows Backup; will I be able to access that after a reinstall? And my biggest concern is that if this happened once and I dont' know why, could it happen again? Maybe there is something wrong with the SSDs? I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this or how to proceed. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[jitpublisher]

If you reinstall, yes you will lose everything you have on those drives. (on the SSDs, but not the other drives, just to clarify) First post here, welcome to the forums. If you do a little looking around, and some searching, you will discover many threads here in the forums that talk about what a terrible idea it is to run your OS on set of drives in RAID, and why putting SSD's into RAID is an even worse idea.

 

[leandrodafontoura]

First, if you reinstall windows, you will not lose your data on the 2TBs HDS or in the external drive. Once you reinstall Windows and install the RAID drivers, you will be able to see the other RAID volume.

What you should do is simply backup the info on the external drive to the SSDs. You have to boot from another disk, then perform the restore inside windows.

 

[leandrodafontoura]

Oh, and whatever happened may happen again, Windows sometimes fails to boot for no aparent reason, it happened to me 3 times already, including 1 time in a RAID volume. thats way you need a quick backup solution ready

 

[nathaniel1968]

It turns out there is a firmware bug in the Crucial M4 SSDs that I have that causes them to shut themselves off after 5200 hours of use. Crucial says they will have a firmware fix out in the next couple of weeks. I've seen some positive information on running a RAID boot drive; and SSDs in RAID can perform quite well if properly configured. I've been very happy with the performance of my machine up until now and in the future I'll make sure to have an image of the boot drive for emergencies. Thanks for all your responses.

 

[nathaniel1968]

Best answer selected by nathaniel1968.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr.