Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) SATA RAID F6 Drivers

The Intel® VROC production package for Windows* is broken into Pre-OS components, F6 (or Load Driver) components, an operating system installer (Intel® VROC Installation Utility) and a Command Line Interface (CLI) component (Intel® VROC CLI Utility). Whereas the operating system installer and the CLI components are common for all Intel® VROC sub-products, there are specific Pre-OS and F6 components for the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) environment.

The F6 driver components for the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) environment are described below. To learn about the F6 driver components for Intel® VROC (VMD NVMe* RAID), refer to Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) VMD NVMe* RAID F6 Drivers.

The Intel® VROC package includes two sets of individual device drivers for the Platform Controller Hub (PCH) controller in RAID mode. Windows* operating systems will support the use of any of these device drivers:

• The first set is intended to support the manual update or installation of the PCH RAID mode device driver from within an operational Windows* operating system environment. This installation process utilizes the Device Manager driver update process and is intended to support those configurations that may not have an Intel® VROC Graphical User Interface (GUI) application installed. These device drivers are located under the F6-drivers directory in the release package and are the following:
  • iaStorE.free.winX.64bit.AA.BB.CC.DDDD: Used for installing Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) on all supported Windows* operating systems.
• The second set of drivers is intended to support the installation of a supported Windows* operating system. Although Windows* does contain support for the SATA controller in RAID mode, Intel recommends using this driver. There is no inbox driver support for the sSATA and tSATA controllers in RAID mode. Installing a supported Windows* operating system requires the use of the F6 drivers (also known as the “Load Driver” option). The Intel SATA/sSATA/tSATA F6 drivers are located in the VROC_AA.BB.CC.DDDD_F6-drivers directory, at the same directory level as those previously mentioned.

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) F6 Drivers Limitation

Starting with Windows 8*, the Microsoft* inbox RAID driver (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology or Intel® RST) began to include support for the platform Device ID 0x2826, which is used by Intel® VROC (SATA RAID). This functionality is intended for customers who do not have access to the latest F6 drivers and need to re-install their operating system.

The operating system installation must be on a single drive only. Once the operating system is installed and the latest Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) driver can be installed, the desired RAID volumes can be generated. One limitation of the Intel® RST inbox RAID driver is that it only supports 6 SATA ports. The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family platforms have 8 SATA ports, which leads to compatibility issues.

For those scenarios where a RAID volume is created in the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Pre-OS environment and that RAID volume contains drives on SATA ports 7 and/or 8, installing one of the supported Windows* operating systems on to the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) RAID volume may fail. This issue can occur even if the intent is to use the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) F6 drivers. This is because the Windows* installation process will search for a suitable inbox driver, and if one is found, will install it before the option to load the F6 driver is presented to the user. The inbox Intel® RST RAID driver will see the RAID volume and see that one or two drives are missing (those drives that are on ports 7 and/or 8). It will then mark the RAID volume as either failed or degraded.

When the Windows* installer presents the option to load drivers, the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) RAID volume has already been marked. The RAID volume status is not visible to the user. When the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) F6 driver is loaded, it will see that the RAID volume is either failed or degraded and will continue as such. This status of the RAID volume is passed on to the Windows* installer, and the user will only find out when attempting to continue with the installation. The following are the two possibilities:

1. For a RAID volume marked as degraded, the installation process will continue as normal. The user may not see the issue until the operating system is installed and the Intel® VROC GUI application has also been installed. The status of the RAID volume is presented to the user in the Intel® VROC GUI application. At that point, the user can take the appropriate action.
2. For a RAID volume that is marked as failed, the user will see that the Windows* installation will not continue. A message will be presented to the user reporting that the process cannot continue.

There are two workarounds that can be implemented. They are as follows:

1. Intel recommends avoiding using ports 7 and/or 8 as part of the operating system installation.
2. Using a USB drive with the Intel® VROC CLI utility (IntelVROCCli.exe) copied to it:
   1. After the installation process encounters the above-mentioned failure (the installation process does not continue), press F10 to invoke a command line window.
   2. If you have not already done so, insert the USB drive into the system. Navigate to your USB drive with the Intel® VROC CLI utility.
   3. Run command IntelVROCCli.exe --manage --normal-volume <volumeName>. This will reset the volume to a normal state.
   4. Close the command line window.
   5. In the Windows* disk selection window, reload the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) F6 driver. Once completed, Windows* should allow the installation on the RAID volume.