Asus P8Z77-V PRO RAID Controller failure

[RSKadish]

Hi all,

This is my first post on Overclockers and I'm hoping to get some advice. I have a problem with my ASUS P8-Z77-V-PRO motherboard.

I have been using it for a little over six months. I have a RAID 1 Volume on the Intel on-board controller.

A few days ago, the system froze. When I rebooted, it no longer recognized the RAID volume.

The Intel boot-time screen shows the volume and both drives as "Disabled."

It will not let me into the configuration utility when I press Ctrl-I.

In order to boot the system, I went into the BIOS and switched the SATA mode to AHCI, and booted off one hard drive.

Has my controller suffered a catastrophic failure?

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,
- Steve

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Do both drives work in Windows?

 

[RSKadish]

Hi ATMInside,

Thanks for the response! Yes, both drives are seen in Windows now that I have changed to AHCI mode.

- Steve

 

[ATMINSIDE]

If you can, back up the data you need externally, then attempt to recreate the RAID array from scratch.

If that doesn't work, I would RMA the board, as it does seem that the controller has "gone south".

If you would rather not RMA the board, Newegg has a great sale on RAID Controllers today.

 

[RSKadish]

Hi ATMInside,

Unfortunately, I can't even delete and re-create the volume, because the Intel boot-time utility won't let me in. When I press "Ctrl-I" nothing happens. (This was never a problem before.)

Best,
- Steve

 

[ATMINSIDE]

If you can, back up the data you need externally, then attempt to recreate the RAID array from scratch.

If that doesn't work, I would RMA the board, as it does seem that the controller has "gone south".

If you would rather not RMA the board, Newegg has a great sale on RAID Controllers today.

See second and third parts of this post then. If the RAID setup won't let you in, there's not a thing I can do.

 

[RSKadish]

Thanks, ATMInside. It does look like I'm pretty well hosed, doesn't it?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

It could be worse, you could've had the controller fail with a RAID0 array!

 

[Rotary]

This happend to me and you cant get your files or use the drives with out format

 

[RSKadish]

Yes, that's very true! I guess I should count my blessings!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Yes, that's very true! I guess I should count my blessings!

There's (almost) always a bright side to things!

 

[redduc900]

If you haven't already, check to make sure the BIOS revision is the latest v1908, and if necessary re-flash it. Regardless of whether the BIOS is running the latest revision or not, try resetting CMOS, then again change the SATA controller mode to RAID. If you already flashed to the newest revision, did you reset CMOS immediately afterwards?

 

[RSKadish]

Hi Redduc,

Thanks for the suggestions - I believe that I am *not* on the latest BIOS. I have not done any of these steps yet. You are recommending that I reset the CMOS using the CLRTC jumper, right?

- Steve

 

[RSKadish]

Hi,

Last night I flashed the BIOS with 1908, and cleared the CMOS. After doing so the volume was still disabled but I was able to Ctrl-I myself into the configuration utility. I removed the accelerator cache drive and the array went back to "enabled." So perhaps the SSD was the issue? I'm not sure.

So the volume is being seen, but there seems to be massive file system corruption and it won't book. I will most likely be restoring from a backup image. At this point I'm working under the assumption that the hardware is all right, although it does seem to take longer to POST.

Thanks,
- Steve