Craig's questions

To start with, I want to be clear that this is on "Hyper-V Server 2019" (free headless hypervisor) and not "Windows Server 2019" with the Hyper-V role installed.

I've been banging my head against the wall on this one a while and tried just about every tutorial option I can. It's far too much to explain every one of the options I've tried. The short version is that no matter what I do to enable BitLocker in some manner or another I end up with an error about not being able to find a file like what is shown in brief here...

PS C:\Windows\System32\> Enable-BitLocker -MountPoint "C:" -EncryptionMethod XtsAes256 -UsedSpaceOnly -RecoveryKeyPath "E:\" -RecoveryKeyProtector
Add-TpmProtectorInternal : The system cannot find the file specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070002)
At C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\BitLocker\BitLocker.psm1:2095 char:31

I get the same error message if it's with a password, recovery key, TPM... makes no difference. I get a similar, but not as verbose of an error, when I use Manage-BDE.exe to attempt enabling BitLocker.

I've reformatted a few times. I've tried before and after domain join. Before/After feature add-ons. I've tried clearing the TPM on several occasions. I've tried having Secure Boot enabled/disabled in the BIOS. I've enabled/disabled/destroyed/rebuilt the Windows recovery partition as well as the ReAgent.xml file.

I'm basically out of options and looking for anything I can get for help. What I ultimately want it to do is boot from just the TPM and have the option for recovery password and optionally a recovery key.

Basic System Overview:

• Supermicro X10SRW-F
• E5-2690 v3
• 2 x 248GB Enterprise Samsung SSDs in Mirror (RAID 1) in BIOS (via Intel VROC)
• TPM 2.0
• UEFI Boot only (not dual or Legacy boot)
• Hyper-V Server 2019
• Roles: Hyper-V Role
• Features:
  • .NET 4.7
  • BitLocker
  • RSAT for BitLocker and Hyper-V
  • Standard for everything else (nothing above stock)
• Add-On: Installed Application Features on Demand to get Explorer, Powershell_ISE and a few other tools.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Nearly 10 years ago I built a PC for a friend and thought it would be a good idea to use the motherboard's RAID controller to set up a RAID 1 array. Since HDDs have a propensity to die quicker than a motherboard and most people upgrade their computers every handful of years, it seemed like a reasonable implementation at the time. Unfortunately, although it was initially set up as a gaming computer for him (something that would almost mandate being upgraded to keep up with current games), my friend stopped gaming and mainly just checks email, and occasionally surfs the web a little. So, it's gone all this time without ever being upgraded. Needless to say, I'm now in a situation where the motherboard died before the drives and I need to recover data for him.

The motherboard is/was an MSI K9A2 Platinum (MS-7376) which uses the Promise Technology PDC42819 chip (the same as their FastTrak TX2650 and TX4650 cards). I've tried a handful of utilities to no avail. DiskInternals, iCare, EaseUS... After hours of running their scans, they all show files in a jumbled mess of folders and files... and none of them were able to actually recover anything.

My options at this point seem to be:

1. Paying several hundred dollars to a professional data recovery firm. Most have guarantees at least, but with their advertised costs being so high I don't want to use them unless I absolutely have to.
2. Buying a used replacement motherboard for over $200. This should work, but the motherboard is so old that it costs more now than it did when it was new and will be worthless once the data is recovered.
3. Gambling on a used $100 RAID card with the same chip. This might work, but I've never done a RAID migration from a motherboard controller to a dedicated RAID card... so I have little faith that it will actually work.
4. Some other software recovery tool or trick that I've yet to try. Nothing's worked so far, but there's a lot out there. Most of what I've found doesn't even address RAID 1 oddly enough. I've also seen mention in another post about using DD to make a copy of the drive and skipping the initial header blocks to strip out the RAID 1 information... but, I'm not familiar with how to find out how much would data need to be skipped... or if that method would even work with this particular RAID implementation.

I'm open to try different tools/techniques to recover the data from the drive(s). Any insight or experience in handing this kind of recovery would be greatly appreciated.

Also, for reference, I'm actually not 100% sure that the motherboard is dead. The system powers on but doesn't even make it to POST... just board lights and fans... No beep codes... No video of any kind. My hunch is something with the motherboard, but it could be a baked CPU too. Although... The CPU fan still works and the heat sink was not plugged with dust, so I don't think it was actually cooked. The PC just flat out died... no weird glitching before death like is common with overheating. I've also tried different RAM and video cards too to no avail just to cover my bases. But, I don't have a spare CPU to test and obviously I don't have a spare motherboard.

So, here we go. I purchased a used LSI 9211-8i to use in my NAS. I installed the card, attached a few drives, booted the system, and everything looked OK. I'm using FreeNAS and there was a warning saying that my card's firmware and BIOS didn't like each other (I can't remember the exact wording). So, I reboot and go into the card settings and see what I have...

So, I check LSI's web page and sure enough I'm way behind on both BIOS and Firmware versions. I look up a handful of tutorials, I read the LSI flash reference guide, I make a bootable FreeDOS USB drive, copy the files over I need and go to town. I start with verifying what I have with the following...

sas2flsh -list 

gave me this which matched what I saw before in the controller settings/configuration...

So... here I go. First erase the card storage

sas2flsh -o -e 6

then flash the new BIOS and Firmware

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

then re-check/validate what happened (because each step above was giving confirmations of success)

sas2flsh -list

which appeared to go swimingly and gave me this...

Everything looks good, so I reboot, everything is looking fine, I enter into the controller configuration and as expected I get this....

I'm happy, everything looks fine. So, I exit and reboot, things are looking fine... and then BAM! The system hangs. The motherboard board makes it through POST just like before, the card initializes just like before, but then when everything should switch over to the system booting from something... nothing happens. It just goes to a black screen. If on POST I hit delete to enter BIOS, it acknowledges that I want to enter BIOS, but never does... just the blank/black screen. Same if I hit F8 to ask for the boot menu options... blank/black screen. I let it go for a while to see if it was waiting for something (I can't imagine what) but it just sits there. I pulled the LSI card from the system and then I can boot just fine. Put it back in, and it's back to blank/black screen after the LSI card initialization finishes. I tried enabling/disabling the boot support on the LSI card in all it's options... nothing. I considered flashing it back to an older firmware... but I can't get it to boot to anything much less the USB that I used to flash in the first place. I even disconnected the drives from it (just because I couldn't think of anything else to try) and that didn't change anything either.

As for the rest of the system, it's a bit on the old side (it is for running FreeNAS after all)... so, hold your breath for a second...

1. ASUS P5N-D motherboard - updated to latest BIOS 1401 (2010/07/01)
2. Intel E7500
3. 8GB RAM

I know... not a true server... not using ECC RAM... blah, blah, blah... Focus on the problem... BLACK/BLANK screen after LSI card initialization. ;)

Any help/suggestions/thoughts to resolve this would be most welcomed and I thank everyone in advance if for no other reason than reading through all of the above.