Aurora-R4, Intel RST not working, Windows 10

There was a major change in Intel-RST years back. I'm not sure you can upgrade over that "hump" ... especially with live RAID discs.

See my thoughts on Intel-RST here:

https://dell.com/community/Alienware-General/1-How-to-Clean-install-Windows-7-64-bit-on-Alienware-Desktop/m-p/5588705/thread-id/90300

Nowdays, I avoid it at all costs.

Are you sure you aren't ready to get some SSDs instead ... maybe use some of those old 1tb spinners for data ... maybe a couple for image backups since no RAID now.

The RST GUI requires DOT NET 3.5 and DOT NET 4.71 installed MANUALLY. The current version is 15 in windows 10.  14,13,12,11 DO NOT SUPPORT NEW CHIPSETS and WONT EVER.  10 and 9 are the versions from XP VISTA 7 by the time you are to 12 its windows 8 machines in 2012 and by the time you are 13 or 14 its windows 10 machines in 2015 and by the time you get to 15 its NVME PCI-E and Optane chipsets etc BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA.  Some assembly required batteries not included.  NOT SUPPORTED BY INTEL or DELL or Microsoft or or or or or.  This does not mean it wont work in 10 it means its not supported.  There are no RAID UPGRADES.  You must Reinstall because RST upgrades not only change the driver they change the RAID Firmware on the motherboard.

NEWER AND NEWER versions of windows and RST DROP SUPPORT for older chipsets.

Older and Older systems DO NOT take Newer and Newer versions of INTEL RST.

Windows 7 comes with Matrix storage manager 8.9

The INTEL MSM is not INTEL RST

Windows 7 Requires INTEL RST 9.6 for advanced format drives aka larger than 80 gigs.

Intel RST replaces Intel Matrix Storage Manager.  HOWEVER you cannot update to your hearts content from 7 to 8 to 9 to 10 to 11 to 12 to 13 to 14 etc.  As the drivers and chipsets get newer the older ICH5 6 7 8 9 10 etc are dropped from support. 

downloadcenter.intel.com/.../15251
Version 9.6.0.1014  may be the max for your motherboard

 PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2682&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C3&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C6&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH7MDH SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/5/3400 SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_282A&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/5 Series SATA RAID"

NEWER Versions (Not necessarily Supported on OLD chipsets)

Microsoft* .NET Framework 3.0 or newer is required to be installed on the system in order for the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology User Interface to install.  Note that  Microsoft* Operating 
Systems do not have .NET 3.0 or newer installed by default.

There may not be an update.  The WIN10 version of INTEL RST  IASTOR.SYS may not support your chipset.  The INTEL RST console app is a DOT NET application and will NOT RUN or install without DOT NET installed first from Control Panel and then all the update patches. You cant use version 14 on a system thats 3 or more years old.  It was INTEL MATRIX Storage Manager until version 9.6

Version 10.1 was the first version to support drives large format drives aka bigger than 2TB with UEFI bios and GPT

You did not say what DELL model you have.

You also have to install these pieces via control panel.

And if you have Secure boot on it must be turned OFF

CSM and Legacy Option Roms must be turned on.

This means you have to install Legacy Direct show as well as DX9

and DX10 drivers from the june 2010 PATCH.

You download the file. extract to a folder and run the dxsetup.exe file as administrator.

Download details: DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Supported Operating Systems:

Windows 7;Windows Server 2003;Windows Server 2008;Windows Vista;Windows XP Service Pack 3.

You also have to re enable DOTNET and Legacy Direct play.

Thanks for your response.   You said I hadn't mentioned what sort of Dell system I have - I think I did - but anyway its an Alienware Aurora R4.   I bought it about 5 and a half years ago.

What I am taking from what you are saying is that the configuration is too old to really expect to be able to get RST working on it.   I am not a computer engineer, so some of the steps you are describing are really beyond my ability to confidently handle.   I had hoped that this was just a case of locating the correct driver version to download, but that is obviously not the case.

At this point I don't have RST running on the PC, as I had uninstalled the (not working) version in order to install a new one.   As I cant find a new one that will work, I don't have RST on there at all any more.   How big a problem is this?   I know RST provides a graphical interface to RAID management, but without it, will the RAID actually rebuild in the case of (say) a power outage, or will it be unable to?

"configuration is too old to really expect to be able to get RST working on it. '

No I am saying that Version 12.6 or 12.9 of intel RST is the max version you can use.

This is not supported HOWEVER it works fine with most older dells all the way back to 2006 depending on the version and Pentium D 900 series with windows 10.  DOTNET IS NOT INSTALLED ON ANY VERSION OF WINDOWS starting with 98SE 2000 XP VISTA 7 8 10 etc.  After 7 you have to install it via Control Panel MANUALLY and download the files via windows update VIA ADD FEATURES TO WINDOWS.

The RST GUI will NOT INSTALL and will NOT RUN without DOTNET 2.0  3.5 installed.

After you install DOT NET and Reboot there are Other Updates which can be downloaded or AUTO updated but it takes forever and a day to do this via windows update.  Therefore I recommend the DOT NET 4.7.1 OFFLINE installer for windows 7 or 8 or 10

If you have raid backup everything FIRST as you can lose all data during an UPGRADE I found the correct version

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23496/

Ok.

I installed Dot Net 2.0 and 3.5 off the Windows Update and then rebooted.

I ran the Dot Net 4.7.1 Offline Installer but it said that 4.7.1 was already on the PC, so that was all good.

I then downloaded the Aurora R4 package that you pointed me at but when I ran it, it failed with "This platform is not supported".   The package says its for Windows 7 and 8 - not sure if that's what the problem is or not?

Did I miss any steps out?

Ok.

I installed Dot Net 2.0 and 3.5 off the Windows Update and then rebooted.

I ran the Dot Net 4.7.1 Offline Installer but it said that 4.7.1 was already on the PC, so that was all good.

I then downloaded the Aurora R4 package that you pointed me at but when I ran it, it failed with "This platform is not supported".   The package says its for Windows 7 and 8 - not sure if that's what the problem is or not?  Did I miss any steps out or could it be that the hardware is too old?

The logfile above says "error in device matching" so I wonder if its looking for a specific hardware version and failing because it cant find it?

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@SimonSchwabe wrote:

What I am taking from what you are saying is that the configuration is too old to really expect to be able to get RST working on it.  

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No, not really.

It's just that RAID on desktops can be hard to keep working (as you are seeing).

Now-days, even a SATA-3/600 SSD is faster than that 2-HDD RAID-0.

As for RAID-1 ... well, I think scheduled Imaged Backups (Full combined with either Differential or Incremental) is a better backup solution. Not only is it immune to something like a virus or ransomware encryption ... it's safer. Do you even know how to switch-over to the other set if you needed to?

One final con against RAIDs ... those disks in their current format ... pretty sure they will only run from this exact motherboard ... with it's particular Intel SATA/RAID controller.

Just to let you know, I did get this fixed today.   I spoke to Dell Technical Support - they couldn't find a working version of RST for my config either, but we found a version of RSTe that did work.   That installed no problem and all seems to be fine now.

Thanks for the earlier input on this.