Missing or reported 'failed' harddisk or RAID set

Owned by Kim Jansen (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jun 08, 2017
2 min read

Problem

The unit may show a notification in red or yellow during boot or a popup in Windows appears that mentions a failed or degraded RAID set or harddisk. D-drive may be gone missing or the Windows eventlog may complain about harddisk errors too.

This issue may become apparent after a ungraceful shutdown; caused by lost mains power or forced power off. It is advised to investigate whether power source is reliable and stable or take notion that a unit should not be turned off using a prolonged press on the on/off button or removing power to the unit.

When the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) tool is installed the status window may show similar to:

Solution

Depending on the revision of your unit the D-drive is a logical drive formed from a RAID set that consists of two identical physical harddrives, this is the most likely part to fail. In the unlikely event that the solid state system disk fails, please contact our office.

  1. First verify whether the Intel RST tool is installed by going to
    1. Start → Programs & Features, or
    2. Start → Apps & Features depending on your Windows version.
  2. If it is skip to step 6
  3. Download "SetupRST.exe" which is attached to this article:
    1. At the topright corner of this supportpage you can access the attachments:
  4. Copy the file to the unit with the problem
  5. Open and install the file using the default options
  6. Go to the systray in the bottomright corner on the unit and rightclick the Intel RST icon and "Open Application":
  7. Locate the marked failed parts in the status window:
  8. Select the component(s) with a yellow exclamation mark or red cross and select "Mark as normal":
    Inline image 2
  9. You may then need to "Reset volume to normal" as well:
    Inline image 3
  10. Wait for all icons to turn green again:
    Inline image 4
  11. A Rebuild process should initiate, this may take hours or days to complete, during which the unit can be used with a little degradation in performance:
    Inline image 5
  12. Make sure the unit is kept running until the rebuild process has completed. This process verifies and checks the harddisks and puts them under load
    1. when completed without errors the system is healthy
    2. when errors do occur please try the above steps 6-11 once more or contact our office for advise
    3. if the issue reoccurs more than twice a year please contact our office for advise