Intel RST RAID

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birchyboy

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Apr 8, 2013
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I have a Sandisk 250 Gb SSD with Win 7 U on an i7 and multiple other hard disks.

I used the Intel Rapid Storage Technology manager to use part of the SSD as a ramdisk.

Perhaps I should have looked into in in more detail, since it installed the SSD and one of my hard disks (Hitachi 500Gb) in RAID0 (the other two are in RAID0 also).

Now the Hitachi has vanished from Win 7, but the OS disk still only shows 250Gb, not the combined storage, although BIOS shows them both and in RAID.

Anyone got any ideas on how to get back the Hitachi (& data)? There appears to be no remove or modify array in the Win 7 Intel RST application.
 
Solution
Hawkeye22
Normally, once you convert to RAID it can be difficult to revert back. RAID 1 is usually the easiest to get back. For RAID 0, you will need to make a backup image of each of the drives (arrays). Then you need to change your bios from RAID to AHCI and break the RAID array so that they are indivdual drives again. Now restore your backup images to the appropriate single drives.
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Hawkeye22

Hawkeye22

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Feb 10, 2006
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Normally, once you convert to RAID it can be difficult to revert back. RAID 1 is usually the easiest to get back. For RAID 0, you will need to make a backup image of each of the drives (arrays). Then you need to change your bios from RAID to AHCI and break the RAID array so that they are indivdual drives again. Now restore your backup images to the appropriate single drives.
 
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birchyboy

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Hawkeye22 - thanks for that, but I can't see the Hitachi disk to make an image. Only the Sandisk OS drive C:\ (223.51 Gb) is visible in Windows Explorer or the Virtual Disk Service. :??:

However, it does show an almost identical partition (223.62 Gb) as 'Unallocated'. That presumably is the Intel RAID0 section of the Hitachi.

On my previous RAID0 disks the data was lost on array setup (I had a backup). So, one of the things that confused me is that after the Intel RAID0 array was created, no data on the Sandisk was lost and the OS still booted perfectly. Why would that be?

What I was hoping is that someone could tell me that breaking the array would only lose the data in the 'Unallocated' part of the Hitachi.

It looks as though I will have break the array, reinstall the OS onto the Sandisk and risk losing the pictures an music on the Hitachi.


 
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Hawkeye22

Hawkeye22

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Feb 10, 2006
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Sorry, I don't have specific information when the SSD is used as a ram disk. I don't know if you would lose that data or not. From general experience with traditional RAID, I'd say you will lose the data unless you can find a way to back it up first.

Hopefully someone else can provide a more definitive answer. Good luck to you.
 
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birchyboy

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Apr 8, 2013
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Hawkeye22

This all came about because Windows 7 Ult. was screwed up by a lot of hardware display drivers (why, I never found out) which were making the desktop take 35 seconds to load from login. It used to be 3-4 sec.

I split the array in BIOS and, not surprisingly, the data on my Hitachi vanished. Fortunately, I found a relatively recent backup, so I just reinstalled Win7U on the SSD and restored the backup from the spare HDD. Reinstalling the programs is always a pain though.

However, the OS now loads in <20 sec and I have a usable desktop <2 sec after login.

Thanks for your time. :bounce:
 
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