Moving from Catalina to Windows 11

Looks like you upgraded this to SoftRAID 6. You have until July to use it as a "Premium" license (log into your account to get your SR 6 license number). After July, you need to renew your support, and then get all premium features and support.

Curious, I've never used SR 6 as I've never bothered to upgrade either SR or MacOS (I'm still on Catalina on my 2018 mini). I bought the Flex from the OWC Garage sales I think, so I guess the code perhaps had already been used? I didn't have a OWC account until the other day when I downloaded SR8 free, it's different from the account to use this forum, and the account that I have with Macsales.com right?

I can still use SR8 Free on Windows to view my RAID5 volumes made by 5.8.4 on the mini?

Edit: my macsales account just has prosoft and novastor backup 'registered'. 

@chobochobo 

Post your license and I can check it.

Yes you can use a SoftRAID volume created in 5.8.4 to mount on Windows, as long as it is not RAID 1+0, which is still not supported on Windows.

Cheers. This?

I have no record of SR6 keys/license.

@chobochobo 

Yes, but you have upgraded it and the license support is still "active" until end of July. Log into your OWC software store account and it will show it to you.

https://software.owc.com/license/

Nope, I only see the license for the free version of SR8. It's okay, I assume that the Flex 8 from macsales was a return and someone had already used the code and upgraded the license to their account. Thanks for your help.

@chobochobo 

If you want to subscribe, I can get you a getting started discount...

Cheers. Today I unplugged my Flex 8 RAID 5 HFS+ journaled from my 2018 Catalina mac mini running 5.8.4 to my Windows 11 (lenovo yoga book 9i) with Free Softraid 8. Windows detects the drive but says it's 'corrupt'. I'm guessing Windows SR8 wont let me read HFS volumes?

@chobochobo 

Yes we support hFS on Windows. Connect back to the Mac and let me know. Attach q macOS support file if you see an issue.

So I tried again. Shut down Mac, unplugged Flex 8 (RAID 5) and plugged it into a TB4 port on my laptop. Drive shows up in explorer, but when I click on it. It says 'not accessible. Structure corrupt' or similar. When I open the free Softraid windows app, the volume is there but not mounted and there is no option to mount it, and nothing I can do. So back to the Mac for the moment.

Mac is on Catalina, probably because that's the version that still works with 5.8.4. I've prevaricated from upgrading the MacOS or Softraid due to having to upgrade one or both. I may need to do something soon as Google drive keeps telling me that they stop supporting Catalina soon.

What's the problem with windows softraid here please? Cheers

@chobochobo 

It appears the volume directory is corrupt. If you have Disk Warrior run it on this volume. If it cannot mount on the Mac, it certainly cannot mount on Windows.

Else you will need to do a "Data Recovery" with Disk Drill, or R-Studio

It mounts fine on Mac (Catalina, 5.8.4). The errors are all on windows. Cheers

@chobochobo 

If you run Disk Utility, "repair" or "first aid", does it show any errors?

First aid says volume could not be unmounted.

edit: I manually unmounted, and now first aid is checking (catalogue file)

edit again: it says volume seems to be ok

@chobochobo 

That is about the only Windows trick I can think of. I don't know why your volume would have errors mounting. I can ask around on Monday.