I decided to try what I described in the original question AND IT WORKED.
On the newer laptop:
1. Remove single NVMe drive
2. Boot into BIOS and change SATA operation to RAID ON (save & exit, then shutdown)
3. Install the 2 RAID 0 NVMe drives into the SAME SLOTS as they were in on the older laptop (labeled SSD-1, SSD-2)
4. When I turned the new laptop ON with the RAID installed Windows started to load.
I decided to boot into Windows Safe Mode first. Logging in with my PIN was unavailable so I logged into Windows with my Microsoft account password AND IT WORKED. Everything is present.
On next reboot I'm sure I'll have a "Getting things ready..." during the Windows load because there is probably some minor difference between the old laptop and the new one that I am not aware of.
So the bottom line is that once SATA operation is set to RAID ON then the RAID controller is looking to see a RAID configuration and apparently must read the configuration from a location on Drive 0.
You need to get the original system working again in order to access the data. You cannot simply transplant the drives to the new system -- the procedure will not work.
Yes. But it is more nuanced than your question because the "old" and "new" computer are the same make/model and have all of the same hardware subcomponents. The only difference is the drive configuration. My question is focused on the RAID controller (which is identical in the two laptops) and how can I tell the controller to import a foreign array.
I expected that if I can get to the point of windows attempting to load once the drives are transplanted I may then have issues with the Windows license showing as activated and I could have a driver issue... but these are secondary issues because at that point I can develop a method to access the data and copy it off of the drives.
Nup. It will never work. The Windows Operating System on the older machine is setup for THAT motherboard. Raid1,2,3,5 makes NO difference. The original drives have been configured for the old motherboard, CPU, Intel Chipset drivers...BIOS, CMOS. It won't boot, there's no way. You can't just swap the drives....UNLESS the motherboards/system configurations are EXACTLY the same on each system. This is why we typically, in the industry, don't RAID the boot drive, UNLESS it is RAID5.
You can still "slave" your old drives off the new motherboard...and drag your data across. ....or just use a flash-drive to migrate it across.
I believe the procedure could work since it appears to be a built-in option for many RAID controllers. Below is a sampling of articles that demonstrate this:
Based on very thorough testing I believe that is the motherboard/cpu socket is the failed part in the old system. So even if I replace the motherboard (or transplant the motherboard from newer laptop) the configuration in the BIOS/RAID controller of the new motherboard will not match my healthy RAID 0 drive array. So, yes, I can get the old system "working" but that will not help me. If the true answer to this situation is that your healthy RAID 0 array (as configured by DELL at the factory) is forever inaccessible because a part elsewhere in the laptop failed then I this a MASSIVE flaw in this flagship product.
It's worse than that. Raid0 fails, unrecoverably, even if either of the drives fail. A mirrored drive would be much better...or Raid5 (3drives). But yes, you cannot swap boot drives between Windows machines, since Windows was invented....unless they are the same hardware.
So you are saying that DELL has been selling their flagship (nearly $6000) laptop with a factory configuration (OS installed on RAID 0) that will render all data unrecoverable on healthy drives if there is ever a need to change out the motherboard. Really?
I understand Windows is activated on that old motherboard but the Intel RAID controller is embedded in the chipset. The new laptop is the exact same computer make/model with the same motherboard, BIOS version manufactured within 1 month of each other.
Essentially I don't really care about fully booting into Windows. I merely wanted to have the BIOS and controller recognize the RAID and move beyond POST to the boot loader. That way I could boot off a recovery OS usb, mount the drive array and copy off the files. There seem to many controllers, including Intel, that allow the import of a foreign RAID array.
I still cannot get over the fact that Dell would sell such a high end system that has 100% data loss potential even if the drives are 100% healthy.
Just to follow up. After I rebooted after being in safe mode windows just loaded completely normally. There was no "getting things ready..." or searching for drivers. It just booted into the windows login screen. My PIN login method was unavailable so I chose my Microsoft Account password which worked. Then to re-activate Windows and Office I just made sure I was connected to the internet and logged into my Microsoft account by going to Windows--> Settings --> Users and seeing I was logged in (.. I already was) and then I went to My PC ---> About and looked at the message that said Windows wasn't activated and chose "Activate Windows" and it Activated using the license that was automatically stored in my Microsoft account. For office I got an un-activated message and I chose activate using the internet and it worked. After that everything was 100% exactly as I had left it on the old laptop. I, of course, then commenced with a backup.
rockroland
10 Posts
1
October 30th, 2021 19:00
I decided to try what I described in the original question AND IT WORKED.
On the newer laptop:
1. Remove single NVMe drive
2. Boot into BIOS and change SATA operation to RAID ON (save & exit, then shutdown)
3. Install the 2 RAID 0 NVMe drives into the SAME SLOTS as they were in on the older laptop (labeled SSD-1, SSD-2)
4. When I turned the new laptop ON with the RAID installed Windows started to load.
I decided to boot into Windows Safe Mode first. Logging in with my PIN was unavailable so I logged into Windows with my Microsoft account password AND IT WORKED. Everything is present.
On next reboot I'm sure I'll have a "Getting things ready..." during the Windows load because there is probably some minor difference between the old laptop and the new one that I am not aware of.
So the bottom line is that once SATA operation is set to RAID ON then the RAID controller is looking to see a RAID configuration and apparently must read the configuration from a location on Drive 0.
AWX17
2 Intern
•
154 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 00:00
Are you saying you/replaced, are trying to boot your new laptop, with the boot drive of an older computer?
ejn63
10 Elder
•
30.7K Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 04:00
You need to get the original system working again in order to access the data. You cannot simply transplant the drives to the new system -- the procedure will not work.
rockroland
10 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 13:00
Yes. But it is more nuanced than your question because the "old" and "new" computer are the same make/model and have all of the same hardware subcomponents. The only difference is the drive configuration. My question is focused on the RAID controller (which is identical in the two laptops) and how can I tell the controller to import a foreign array.
I expected that if I can get to the point of windows attempting to load once the drives are transplanted I may then have issues with the Windows license showing as activated and I could have a driver issue... but these are secondary issues because at that point I can develop a method to access the data and copy it off of the drives.
AWX17
2 Intern
•
154 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 13:00
Nup. It will never work. The Windows Operating System on the older machine is setup for THAT motherboard. Raid1,2,3,5 makes NO difference.
The original drives have been configured for the old motherboard, CPU, Intel Chipset drivers...BIOS, CMOS. It won't boot, there's no way. You can't just swap the drives....UNLESS the motherboards/system configurations are EXACTLY the same on each system.
This is why we typically, in the industry, don't RAID the boot drive, UNLESS it is RAID5.
You can still "slave" your old drives off the new motherboard...and drag your data across.
....or just use a flash-drive to migrate it across.
rockroland
10 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 13:00
I believe the procedure could work since it appears to be a built-in option for many RAID controllers. Below is a sampling of articles that demonstrate this:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000122457/how-to-import-a-foreign-configuration-in-the-raid-controller-using-the-system-setup-menu
6.3.1 Importing a foreign configuration:
https://www.itcreations.com/user-manuals/7820-tower/configuring-raid-for-dell-precision-workstations.pdf?nr
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2sx7fy/when_a_raid_card_fails/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA84_itM4fc
Importing Foreign RAID Arrays on based Hardware Intel® RAID Controllers:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000024272/server-products/raid-products.html
https://serverfault.com/questions/550503/reinserted-a-raid-disk-defined-as-foreign-is-import-or-clear-the-correct-choic
https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-HDD-SCSI-RAID/Foreign-configuration-import-or-clear/td-p/4683738
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2145142-dell-perc-controller-foreign-configuration-missing-drive
rockroland
10 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 13:00
Based on very thorough testing I believe that is the motherboard/cpu socket is the failed part in the old system. So even if I replace the motherboard (or transplant the motherboard from newer laptop) the configuration in the BIOS/RAID controller of the new motherboard will not match my healthy RAID 0 drive array. So, yes, I can get the old system "working" but that will not help me. If the true answer to this situation is that your healthy RAID 0 array (as configured by DELL at the factory) is forever inaccessible because a part elsewhere in the laptop failed then I this a MASSIVE flaw in this flagship product.
rockroland
10 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 14:00
Additionally there is this method:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/recovering-a-raid-0-array-on-different-hardware-good-drives.3299459/
AWX17
2 Intern
•
154 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 19:00
It's worse than that. Raid0 fails, unrecoverably, even if either of the drives fail.
A mirrored drive would be much better...or Raid5 (3drives).
But yes, you cannot swap boot drives between Windows machines, since Windows was invented....unless they are the same hardware.
rockroland
10 Posts
0
October 30th, 2021 19:00
So you are saying that DELL has been selling their flagship (nearly $6000) laptop with a factory configuration (OS installed on RAID 0) that will render all data unrecoverable on healthy drives if there is ever a need to change out the motherboard. Really?
I understand Windows is activated on that old motherboard but the Intel RAID controller is embedded in the chipset. The new laptop is the exact same computer make/model with the same motherboard, BIOS version manufactured within 1 month of each other.
Essentially I don't really care about fully booting into Windows. I merely wanted to have the BIOS and controller recognize the RAID and move beyond POST to the boot loader. That way I could boot off a recovery OS usb, mount the drive array and copy off the files. There seem to many controllers, including Intel, that allow the import of a foreign RAID array.
I still cannot get over the fact that Dell would sell such a high end system that has 100% data loss potential even if the drives are 100% healthy.
rockroland
10 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2021 18:00
Just to follow up. After I rebooted after being in safe mode windows just loaded completely normally. There was no "getting things ready..." or searching for drivers. It just booted into the windows login screen. My PIN login method was unavailable so I chose my Microsoft Account password which worked. Then to re-activate Windows and Office I just made sure I was connected to the internet and logged into my Microsoft account by going to Windows--> Settings --> Users and seeing I was logged in (.. I already was) and then I went to My PC ---> About and looked at the message that said Windows wasn't activated and chose "Activate Windows" and it Activated using the license that was automatically stored in my Microsoft account. For office I got an un-activated message and I chose activate using the internet and it worked. After that everything was 100% exactly as I had left it on the old laptop. I, of course, then commenced with a backup.