2x Raid 1 gone after bios upodate

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K

Klan

Honorable
Feb 14, 2014
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10,510
Hi all

I have searched the forums for my issue, but not found a case exactly like mine.

My setup:
Windows 7 running on a SSD drive with one NTFS partition.
2x SATA HDD drives running with two Raid 1 NTFS partitions, used for various storage.

What has happened is:
I updated the bios on my Asus Sabertooth Z87 motherboard to the newest version. After the restart, it went into bios settings. Here I forgot to check the SATA mode, witch had changed from RAID to AHCI doing the update.
Windows booted fine, but once running, I noticed that one of the two storage drives where missing.

I rebooted and changed the SATA mode back to RAID, but in the RAID BIOS setup screen, no drives was displayed as being part of a RAID.
The same is the case in windows version of the Intel Rapid Storage manager.
The SSD and the two HDD's are visible, but no raid is configured.

I the Windows Disk Manager, I can see that the first raid 1 partition is active on both drives, but that the second raid 1 partition is display as unused space.

I tried booting the system, with only one of the HDD connected, but only shows the first partition.

How can I recreate the missing partition and save the data on it?

Any help appreciated!

 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Sep 17, 2012
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this is an issue that ALOT of people do.

When you use Onboard RAID on ANY motherboard and you update the BIOS ALL SETTING WILL BE WIPED INCLUDING RAID! Always best to make a backup of your RAID and then and then remake the raid after a bios update and restore the backup.

Now it should have picked them up back again but Intel RAID SUCKs at that.

When you boot can you access at least one of the RAID 1 hard drives? If so we need to clone that to another drive, then go back in and remake the RAID and then clone the backup drive back over.

Unless anyone else has a better idea as I have not had this issue before since i use actual RAID cards.
 
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K

Klan

Honorable
Feb 14, 2014
10
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10,510


Thanks for the advise.
Yes I see now that a lot of people have this issue - had I just searched for RAID bios update before doing the update, I think I would have done a backup as you say.

Well I am able to access one of the former RAID 1 partitions - but as a normal single drive partition. So I already took a backup of that. But I have no clue how to get access to the other RAID one partition, as it is only displayed as unallocated space.

Would it make any sense to downgrade the bios again, and see if that works?
 
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drtweak

drtweak

Illustrious
Sep 17, 2012
6,342
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No the damage is already done so don't mess with the BIOS any more.

And it shows as unallocated? eeeeekk...We may want to get some file recovery software. Here are a few free ones. I haven't tried these guys out personally as I have a few thousand dollars of professional data recovery programs as my disposal (Though my work)

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm
 
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Solution
K

Klan

Honorable
Feb 14, 2014
10
0
10,510


Just an update. I was able to recover the lost partition, using the program "TestDisk". Worked very well :)
I then made a backup of the rediscovered partition and changed the raid setup, to only one RAID 1 partition using all disc space on the two discs.

My biggest concern was, that I would have to recreate the raid array, before I could retrieve the lost partition, but that wasn't necessary.

Thanks again for the advise.
 
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