Areca provides the latest version of Firmware, Bios, Driver, Utilities, Datasheet. Available for download. You can select an option to obtain the file to upgrade it. If you purchased a pre-configured RAID drive, you may not have any options here. LaCie offers a RAID Monitor app for Mac, but G-RAID does not offer a similar tool. These pre-configured enclosures also don't include any warning lights in the hardware, so it's even more difficult to tell if any of the drives aren't working properly.
Jun 08, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
There are numerous cases where people have complained about the Raid controller not recognizing the drives, but there is nothing to be frown upon. This issue is completely curable. Every problem comes with many solutions, same goes for this issue. In this guide firstly, you will get to know the reasons behind the problem of Raid controller not recognizing the drives, once you have known all the reasons, then you will have a list of solutions in line. You just need to stick to the guide and follow all the methods carefully to kick the issue out of your Mac.
- Part 1. Why RAID controller has stopped detecting or recognizing drives?
- Part 2. How to fix RAID controller not recognizing drives error?
Part 1: Why RAID controller has stopped detecting or recognizing drives?
Nothing happens without a back story. Some goes for this dilemma where the Raid controller has stopped detecting drives. Raid controller may have many reasons for not working properly. Many people report different reasons of this trouble. This logical arrangement of physical drives in a RAID array is susceptible to errors often caused by hardware/software failure and human errors. After a study of multiple cases, these are some of the most common reasons behind Raid controller not recognizing the drives:
- Smart disk error can also be the reason behind this issue.
- The most ignored factor is overheating, which can also lead to such errors.
- There is this rare scenario where a Raid may stop detecting Raid drives after a soft reboot.
- Virus infections in the Mac or computer can also lead to this devastating situation.
- Power surge or abrupt shutdown is also sometimes the back story of this trouble faced by the users.
- In some cases, device driver issues, metadata conflicts etc. Can lead to errors where Raid controller may stop detecting or recognizing Raid drives.
The purpose of knowing the reasons behind the dilemma is that you make sure to avoid them in future.
Part 2: How to fix RAID controller not recognizing drives error?
Now that you have known the causes of Raid controller not recognizing drives, it is time for you to know the actual methods to solve the issue. There is no solution for this problem, so you are free to try all the methods which suits your scenario the most. Most people don't tend to follow the steps properly and end up creating ten more problems for them. If you want to fix the issue immediately, just follow these troubleshooting methods carefully;
Method 1: Reconstruct a virtual Raid.
Starting from the first and the simplest method, where you need to reconstruct a virtual raid. It is because if you are not able to fix the raid controller not recognizing drives error, it is better to construct a virtual raid with the help of a raid recovery software. To do this you need to be sure that the software that you are using must be legit and trustable. There is a list of software's available in the market but the one best for your task is mentioned below in the guide. Now carefully follow these steps to rebuild your RAID array and recover or backup your inaccessible data.
Recoverit data recovery is remarkable enough to recover more than 1000+ types and formats of data. Recoverit can recover data from almost any of the storage devices used in 21st century. Recoverit for external hard drives is widely known software all around the world. The software can recover data even from crashed computers and can has an advance repair which can repair corrupted videos. There are very few steps to be followed. Use these steps to restore your data from the undetectable hard drive.
Step 1 Launch recoverit on the computer
The first task is to download and install the recoverit software on your computer or Mac. Once it is installed, you can just double click the icon on the desktop to run the application or you can find it in the search bar and open it from there.
Step 2 Select the device
Once you’ve opened the application, the steps are easy and simple after that. You need to select the drive under the “devices” option in front of you. Make sure you select the hard drive you want to make back up of, the hard drive which is not detected by Raid controller. Once you have recognized your hard drive. Click on the “start” tab to move forward.
Step 3: Scan the location
Recoverit is famous for its deep scanning process. Once you have pressed the tab of 'start' the software will start the deep scanning process for the hard drive you want to recover data from. You can even either pause or resume the scanning process. It will take a few minutes to finish the scanning. Sometimes, a few hours are required if many large-sized files are present. During the scanning process you can also pinpoint the files you desire.
Step 4: Preview and recover files
The scanning process might take some time. After the process has been completed, you will be able to preview all the data you on your undetectable hard drive and now found after the deep scanning process. You can preview multiple types of data, may it be videos, pictures or audio. Moreover, when you click on the file, some information about the file will display, including the file name, file size, file path and the modified date. Without thinking further, you need to select the button of 'recover' to enable the final and the most important recovering process. Recovery time of the data will depend upon the size of the data on the hard drive you have connected. In the end, save your recovered data at the desired location.
Method 2: Inspect drivers
If the above method was wasn't effective enough in your situation, then you need to put your eyes on this one. Before proceeding any further, let me tell you that in this task you need to have some technical know-how to easily perform this method. If you can't then get a person who has some know-how of inspecting drivers. In this method you need to remove all drives from the Raid stack and then connect them to a Windows PC by using SATA or SATA to USB converter cable. Your drive must be compatible with the SATA to USB converter cable, if you want to procced further.
After connecting it to the windows pc use a smart disk monitoring utility such as crystal disk info. In some scenarios, you can also use the software mentioned above to get better insight of the hard drive.
- If the driver monitor gives you red alert by displaying poor health and smart warnings, you immediately need to clone the disk as the hard drive may become useless in future. Not only this, try reconstructing the virtual Raid to avoid data loss.
- If things look perfectly fine with the drive, you can use any of the methods below to fix it.
Method 3: check/reset BIOS configuration
This method is the shortest and simplest of them all. In this method there are few steps you need to follow and get rid of the problem. Firstly, you must make sure that the BIOS settings are defined as per the Raid setup. If you witness any changes in the BIOS due to any update or corruption, you need to revert those as soon as possible. If you see no change then you can also update or downgrade your BIOS to make the Raid detect your hard drive.
Note: The process of updating the BIOS is safe only if it completes successfully. The thing that you need to keep in your mind is that downgrading your BIOS may not be a good idea. Downgrading the BIOS can be fatal for the system as it can brick your laptop or pc. If the downgrade process is failed in between due to any reason, then your system BIOS may be corrupted.
Furthermore, you need to check the SATA mode selection or any similar in your system BIOS to ensure that the Raid is selected instead of SATA drive.
sata-mode-selection
Method 4: Replace or try another Raid controller
This is the last method you can try to detect your hard drives. In this method you finally need to replace or try another Raid controller. You can only procced in this method if your Raid array is external or network connected. If yes, then try replacing the hardware controller. In other words, you can just try another controller to check if your hard drives are detectable or recognized.
This method might not be for everyone, as the hardware controllers are not too cheap for everyone to buy. So, if you can afford, then only perform this method. The more expensive this method is, the more affective it is. If not, then just try the above methods again properly, they might give you a relief by detecting your hard drive by trying again and again properly.
Conclusion
Raid Controller Software For Mac Pc
A Raid controller detection works efficiently only when there are defined parameters for it. Otherwise, if any of the predefined settings conflicts or changed due to BIOS misconfiguration, damage or corruption can lead to poor working of Raid controller, which finally results in undetectable hard drives by the Raid controller. Apart from this logical and physical error can also interrupt the working of Raid controller. The purpose of mentioning the causes is to make you vigilant in future for any casualty. Furthermore, this guide has mentioned all the possible solutions to the problem of Raid controller not detecting the hard drives. All you need to do is to focus on the method which is most adjustable in your case. Keep in mind that the data is the most important thing on the hard drive, you must keep a backup to avoid stress in situations where issues like 'Raid controller not recognizing drive might occur.
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When my father told me that he was running his computer in Raid 0, I was confused as to why he would want such a configuration. To my knowledge, running a Raid configuration was outdated and complicated to set up. Then I did my research.
There are significant advantages to running your computer in a raid configuration. The most common raid configurations for home use are Raid 0 and Raid 1.
Raid 0 gives you better performance, as it focuses on distributing data evenly on multiple drives (instead of using one drive as a backup), significantly increasing read/write speeds of your machine.
Raid 1 gives you better data insurance, as it creates an exact copy of data from one hard drive to another, constructing full redundancy through backups. Setting up your hard drives to run in a Raid configuration is a personal decision based on your setup and you should decide which iteration is best for you. I personally prefer Raid 0, because I prioritize computer speed and performance over data security and redundancy.
Before starting
If you’re planning on implementing a raid setup on your current machine, make sure you create a backup of all of your data, as it will be erased in the process. You will also need Two separate flash drives with enough space for their respective files.
On the first flash drive you will need to download the Raid drivers. You can find those here after you select your machine and model. On the second flash drive you will need to download the windows ISO. You can find that download link here.
It’s possible to install both files to a single flash drive but there have been reports of system instability during startup, so I wouldn’t risk it. Let’s begin.
Setting up Raid 0 or Raid1
I briefly mentioned the benefits of each iteration of Raid, but with all advantages in life, come their respective disadvantages. Since Raid 0 distributes your data to multiple drives, if a single drive fails, all of the data on the other drives will be gone as well. The disadvantage of Raid 1 is that it’s significantly slower than Raid 0.
That being said, Raid 0 and Raid 1 are both super easy to set up and require basically the exact same setup process. The first thing you’re going to want to do is figure out if your motherboard has a built in Raid controller (most modern motherboards do).
From here you should:
- Connectthe drives you want to use
- Bootup the machine into the BIOs
Once you’re there your screen willlook like the one in the picture below. From here you should navigate to yourBIOS equivalent of the chipset. This screen will look something likethis:
After navigating to your chipsetyour screen will look like this:
From the chipset screen, you shouldnavigate to SATA Mode and select RAID instead of AHCI.
You have now successfully initialized Raid on your motherboard; simply hit Save & Exit. The computer will restart at this point and will attempt to launch a copy of windows that isn’t there anymore.
Simply press and hold Ctrl + R to launch the Raid controller user interface (Ctrl +R for AMD, this combo may vary for your setup). At this point your screen should look something like this:
After reaching this point youshould select Create Array then select the drives you want to use forthe raid configuration. The drives available will be listed on the right-handside under Disks. Use the A or Ins key to select thedrives and hit enter when you’re finished configuring the disks.
Afteryou’ve done this your screen will look like this:
From here you can decide which configuration you want to select. I personally selected Raid 0 but the choice is yours. After this you will choose the size of the array you want to build.
I just kept the default setting of using All Available Space for my raid drives. After this you will select the caching mode, I have kept the default caching system Read/Write. This will look something like this:
After configuring it to your liking simply press C to create your array. Press Esc and Y to restart your system with your new Raid configuration.
Amd Raid Controller Software
After rebooting, navigate back toyour BIOS and select your new raid configuration for the boot disk. Beforehitting Save & Exit Your screen should look something like this:
After doing this your machine will restart again. Allow it to go through the normal startup process. It will prompt you of a driver error at which point your screen should look like this:
If you haven’t done so already, plugin the flash drive that contains your Raid Drivers and the flash drivethat contains your Windows ISO, navigate to the drive and folder wherethe driver is stored and hit OK. Your screen should look like this:
Select the drivers you need for the installation then click on Next. After doing this your screen will prompt you to select the drive you want to install your new Windows 10 Operating system on then click on Next again. Your screen will look like this:
Your operating system will now begin installing. From here, you should be completely set up in whichever raid configuration (0 or 1) you chose. If you have any questions or if you need further elaboration on a specific part of the process let me know and I will get back to you immediately!
Enjoy the world of redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID).