Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) SATA RAID Pre-OS RAID Management Environment

Content Type: Product Information & Documentation | Article ID: 000101191 | Last Reviewed: 05/19/2025

Environment

Intel® VROC for Windows*

The Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) package supports BIOS Control Feature Set (BCFS) as well as ATAPI devices and UEFI information protocols in Pre-OS environments.

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Features

The Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Pre-OS features and functionality are one of the key features of the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) sub-product. To learn about other key features of this Intel® VROC sub-product, refer to Key Features of Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) SATA RAID for Windows*.

Using the BCFS to Differentiate Platform SKUs

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Pre-OS has support for BIOS Control Feature Set (BCFS) to enable platform manufacturers the opportunity to customize the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) feature offerings. Platform manufacturers can enable/disable the desired features per platform SKU directly in their BIOS code. By clearing or setting the corresponding bits of the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Feature Capabilities register in the Intel® chipset’s SATA controller MMIO space, platform manufacturers now have greater flexibility in determining what Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) features will be supported per platform model/SKU.

The following sections explain the use of each of the bits in the BCFS, also known as the Software Feature Mask bits.

Note

This information does not cover details on how to set up a system BIOS. For that level of information, contact the user’s platform’s BIOS vendor.

Configuring the Platform’s RAID Related Features

When the BIOS has set the SATA controller’s mode to RAID, the following bits of the Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Feature Capabilities register in the Intel® chipset’s SATA controller MMIO space will determine what RAID levels will be supported on the platform SKU:

BCFS Bit Number	Bit Meaning	Values		Additional Information
0	Enable/Disable RAID 0	Disabled	0x0	If all RAID levels are disabled, all BCFS settings will be set back to default and OROM UI delay will be set to 2 seconds.
		Enabled	0x1
1	Enable/Disable RAID 1	Disabled	0x0
		Enabled	0x1
2	Enable/Disable RAID 10	Disabled	0x0
		Enabled	0x1
3	Enable/Disable RAID 5	Disabled	0x0
		Enabled	0x1
4	RESERVED
5	RESERVED
6	Enable/Disable Unlock of HDD in OS	OS cannot unlock HDDs	0x0	-
		OS can unlock HDDs	0x1
7	Enable/Disable LED SGPIO	Disabled	0x0	-
		Enabled	0x1
8	eSATA RAID Usage	Allow all volume types to span internal and external ports	0x0	-
		Allow only R1 volume type to span internal and external ports. Other volume types allow all eSATA internal disks only if there are enough of them to create the volume.	0x1
9	RESERVED
10 - 12	RESERVED
13 - 14	RESERVED
15	RESERVED

Note

Clearing all RAID level related bits to 0 is an unsupported configuration. The Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) Legacy OROM will ignore the BIOS settings and enable all RAID levels.

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) UEFI Dirty Shutdown Recovery

The Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) UEFI driver will be able to recover from the RAID 5 volume invalid state caused by a Dirty Shutdown condition occurrence if all RIAD 5 disk members are enumerated during system boot.

ATAPI on SATA/sSATA/tSATA Controller

The Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) product will provide support for ATAPI devices connected to the SATA/sSATA/tSATA controller. Pre-OS ATAPI support is handled by the platform system BIOS.

If using an ATAPI device connected to either the sSATA or tSATA controllers to install a Windows* operating system on an Intel® VROC-managed drive or RAID volume on another controller (e.g., SATA controller, Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) controller), the installation may be blocked with a pop-up error message in the Windows* pre-install window phase stating that a media driver your computer needs is missing. This is a limitation with Windows* operating systems. If you face this scenario, refer to the below workaround methods:

If the SATA controller is set to AHCI mode in the BIOS, connect the ATAPI device to that controller (not the sSATA or tSATA controllers) and proceed with the Windows* installation process as usual.
Set the sSATA or tSATA controller, whichever the ATAPI device is connected to, in the BIOS to RAID mode. Then during the Windows* pre-install phase, load the Intel® VROC driver for that controller. Then proceed with the Windows* installation process as usual.

Support for EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) provides limited support for providing information on the SATA drives managed by Intel® VROC through the EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL. This feature will be supported for drives in a RAID volume, pass-thru drives (not in a RAID volume), drives marked as incompatible, drives marked as spares and journaling drives. The following is the list of supported ATA pass-thru commands for RAID members. For any not listed command, the EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL.PassThru function will return EFI_UNSUPPORTED status.

CHECK_POWER_MODE
DATA_SET_MANAGEMENT
DATA_SET_MANAGEMENT_XL
DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
EXECUTE_DEVICE_DIAGNOSTIC
GET_PHYSICAL_ELEMENT_STATUS
IDENTIFY_DEVICE
IDLE
IDLE_IMMEDIATE
MUTATE_EXT
NCQ_NON_DATA
NOP
READ_LOG_EXT
REQUEST_SENSE_DATA_EXT
SECURITY_DISABLE_PASSWORD
SECURITY_ERASE_PREPARE
SECURITY_ERASE_UNIT
SECURITY_FREEZE_LOCK
SECURITY_SET_PASSWORD
SECURITY_UNLOCK
SET_DATE_AND_TIME_EXT
SET_FEATURES
SLEEP
SMART
STANDBY
STANDBY_IMMEDIATE
WRITE_LOG_EXT
DATA_SET_MANAGMENT
FLUSH_CACHE_EXT

EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL Supported Functions

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) supports and handles the following EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL functions on all drives including RAID member drives:

BuildDevicePath()
GetDevice()
GetNextDevice()
GetNextPort()
PassThru()

Intel® VROC (SATA RAID) reports as EFI_UNSUPPORTED for the following EFI_ATA_PASS_THRU_PROTOCOL functions on all drives including RAID member drives:

ResetDevice()
ResetPort()