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BSOD after RAID 1 is configured
Hello to all,
I have one Dell T5500 workstation on which I can practice and experiment different things. I have come across to a very interesting problem.
I have tried to set up RAID 1 configuration with existing windows installation without loss of data using Intel Rapid Storage Technology software.
I have made all steps described here in this instruction.
So, there are really a lot of topics on various forums discussing BSOD caused creating RAID but this is in my opinion really specific case.
As I said I have DELL Precision T5500 workstation in which two disks are installed. The disks are not configured as RAID member disks and I want to them to be.
One disk is uninitialized. In BIOS setting "RAID ON" is enabled. So Windows 7 pro 64 bit is already installed on one HDD (SATA port 0).
During computer start, I can clearly see in Intel Matrix Storage Manager that both drives are listed as Non-RAID disks. There are no problems at all, the machine boots fine.
So in order to avoid loss of data or windows re-installation I have found instructions set how to configure RAID in windows.
So I have installed IRST software and followed all steps and everything went exactly according to the manual. When Migration data was finished (100%), I close IRST (actually minimized) and continue working in Windows.
However, after first reboot I received error message 0x000..7B (which meas windows cannot find bootable drive).
This BSOD is typical for example if BIOS setting is changed from ATA to AHCI or from AHCI to RAID.
But in my case nothing was touched in the BIOS. BIOS was already enabled with RAID ON and I only added second disk that was previously uninitialized and I created volume.
After very first restart, both disks were listed now as RAID members but windows didn't boot and ended with BSOD.
After reset disk to non RAID (both drives), Windows can boot without problems.
So, what could be the reason for this behavior here? The manual was very clear and I didn't make anything which was not described.
One thing that I don't know is how windows was installed in the first place, but I doubt that is important since it was booting OK when RAID is ON in BIOS.
To summarize, I didn't touch BIOS setting and only followed manual to create RAID volume in Windows (I was careful to migrate data from system drive to secondary drive). When boot from WIN PE disk or windows boot CD I can see that both drives have all folders and data.
On some other web sites I have found info that it is not possible to configure RAID without windows re-installation and that recommended procedure is to set up RAID 1 first and then to install Windows.
But I have found instruction on official manufacturer's site that states otherwise.
Do you have any advice?
Thank you