Bios reset itself and wiped raid

[Preacher]

My ASRock z77-pro4m bios just reset itself and broken my raid0 array. I'm using two 128Gb M4 drives and PC says no operating system present.

The sata mode had reset to the default AHCI so I had to change it back to raid. In the bios it shows the raid array but one drive states Non RAID Disk.

Is there a way to fix this or have I lost everything? Any advice on how to stop this happening again as well?

[Splash]

Not really advice on how to stop it happening again, but...

Backups. *Especially* if you're using RAID0 for anything other than fast scratch storage. And then... why bother using RAID0 for a pair of SSDs? What performance increase do you get to outweigh the inherent risk of RAID0?

[peterb]

As splash said (and has been repeated many times in the forums) RAID 0 is inherently risky as there is no redundancy at all, failure of one disk (or the RAID mechanism) is likely to result in the loss of some or all data.

Motherboard related software RAID is riskier than software only RAID (such as mdadm) or purely hardware RAID from a controller because the algorithms may be proprietary, and as you have discovered, subject to the whims of the motherboard.

In any case, no RAID system is a substitute for a backup regime, least of all RAID0 which has very limited value in RL computing scenarios, except for some very specialised server applications.

How to recover the data? A reputable data recovery firm might be able to. You might be able to do it yourself using something from www.runtime.org
but you must not do anything to the disks at all, other than take a complete clone of them (preferably mounting them read only) and then working on the cloned copies, so if you make a mistake, you can go back and start again by making new clones.

Obviously, that means rebuilding your system from scratch using a new disk for that as trying to reuse the existing disks will destroy data irretrievably.

One glimmer of comfort, if you have only lost the metadata about the raid (that I asdume was stored in the CMOS memory, the RAID data may still be intact on the disks. You might try recreating an identical RAID using two new disks and then swapping out the new disks and replacing it with the old (or better still, clones of the old disks). That does involve buying four new dsks though. However the clones could be made on two partitions of a mechanical drive, which would reduce the costs a little.

Good luck.

[Preacher]

Buying more drives is not really an option at the moment unfortunately. Luckily i haven't lost anything other than a few game saves and a couple of random files I can get again.

All my important stuff is kept on a separate storage drive and backed up to a NAS.

It was more a case of if it was a bios setting I could change but I will just reinstall everything! Trying to save myself the time and the re-downloading of all the updates, steam games etc

Think I will install windows on one drive and move game installs onto the other. Should you still move the page file as well in windows 8?

[Whizzkid]

Just a side note, is the entire bios resetting? Just changed a cmos battery on mine and all is well again.

[big_hairy_rob]

Ive seen plenty of times that the bios can wipe, but setting your SATA controller back to raid usually works to reform it. Certainly this happens for us when we are running Raid1. Sorry, but I have no experience of Raid0, but I fail to see how that would be any different, especially as the drives wouldn't be able to boot thanks to the missing information...

[Preacher]

I tried recreating the raid but it wiped my disks so I ended up installing steam on one SSD and windows on the other. Ended up buying a 500gb drive I seen reduced (just remembered I have to do the cashback), so selling my m4's now. Although one would make a rapid usb3 external drive..

[GoNz0]

i would keep both SSD's, windows and some programs on one and games on the other.

use the 500gb for backup.

[Preacher]

I filled both the m4's, that's why i bought the 500gb 840. I blame all the offers that came up for steam! have also just got four 3tb seagate drives. 2 for my PC and had intended to put 2 in my NAS but going to swap them for a pair of green drives for the noise.

Plan on creating a disk image and saving it on one of the storage drives so no need for the m4's.

One question though. I intend to pool the storage using windows to create one big volume. Am I asking for the same trouble as with raid0 so should I just have them as two seperate drives?

Everything will be backed up to my NAS so no fear of losing anything just the ball ache of if it fails!!