Windows 10: Fail to Boot after Intel RST Install - Repair Apparently Impossible

Yes - with both the 8.1 disk as well as the 10 disk. From reading the srtLogFile The 8.1 disk would always throw the error "The operating system version is incompatible with Startup Repair" - when I ran startup repair from the 10 disk RE it would at least "attempt repairs." Likely the repairs were being made to the RAID array boot sector - there is no system on the RAID array, apparently only a system signature, and when booting (and writing with BCDedit), windows defaults to that signature as opposed to the actual system drive. Very confusing.

 

What about at the BIOS level - can you limit booting to one disk? In my Asus I can specify what disks are available for booting and in what order of preference. I normally just specify the one system disk. I assume Gigabyte BIOS has something similar?

 

Yep - I even attached the sata cable to the "GSATA" port on the mobo, and disconnected every other drive from the board except the optical disk. Windows refused to repair (or see) the boot record, in spite of the drive showing up just fine in the bios. I believe that the RST drivers were on the drive, and at such a level in the boot sequence that windows used them every time, creating a conflict (maybe with the GSATA drivers??) or something that was irreparable. There simply did not appear to be a solution other than reset.

Back in the day (talking 2000 pro here) in the recovery or installation environment windows would have you hit F6 to load RAID drivers from a floppy in order to install into the boot sequence, otherwise, no RAID drivers would load. Those were the good times I guess.

 

Ahh, floppies! Nothing like installing OS-2 from 28 floppies and have the 25th one crap out *Biggrin ...

If you have a backup image, you could try installing a new Windows over the current one which would set up a new boot sector, then just restore the Windows partition ...