UEFI update stupidity

@Pixel:    I think lots of us have had things like this happen.  I know I have created MANY problems for myself over the years, and when that happens, it definitely sucks!   But hopefully the following things are true:
  1.  You had good backups so you didn't lose any data.
  2.  You have a better understanding of what to do (or not to do?) next time.
  3.  This thread might save someone else from the same fate, so thanks for posting.

     I hope that array doesn't rake to long to restore...

       - Lucky

As a RAID user for many years, I'm sorry to say but it's RAID 101 material that after a UEFI/BIOS update, the FIRST thing you must do is get into the UEFI/BIOS and set the SATA mode to RAID.

When the PC restarts after an update to the UEFI/BIOS, a screen appears that DOES say the UEFI/BIOS settings have been reset to default values. This message is not in a large or colorful font, but it is displayed.

When the PC restarts after a UEFI/BIOS clear (Not an update but a simple clear), the same message as described above appears, warning the user that all the UEFI/BIOS options have been reset to their default values. You can easily test that yourself.

In BOTH of these cases, there is a timer running on the screen that gives us 15 seconds to press the Del or F2 keys, so we can go into the UEFI/BIOS UI and set any options we require, such as the SATA mode to RAID. Otherwise when the timer expires, the PC will then start booting, which the message on the screen clearly states.

So I must say that it is not true that there is no warning given about the options being reset to defaults after a UEFI/BIOS update or a UEFI/BIOS clear. There is the warning I described above, which we can see displayed if we simply clear the UEFI/BIOS.

To be fair to both sides of this question, the message displayed is in a small, un-warning like font that is obviously missed by some users. For those users that are not accustomed to the requirement of setting one or more UEFI/BIOS options after an update or clear, the current format of the warning message could be improved. This message has been in its current format for years, so it has not been made smaller or changed recently.

Personally, I use several non-default UEFI/BIOS option settings that I must reset after an update or clear. I'm not referring to OC option settings at all. I use non-default settings of the CSM option, the SATA drive type, and disable several hardware options, for example. For me, resetting options is standard work after an update or clear.

The discussion about what options should or can be left set to the users choice, can be argued from many perspectives, including that of UEFI/BIOS programmers. The old standard of setting all options to their default values may have its basis in realities of firmware programming that is still valid today.

A simple big fat warning sign telling you that settings will get lost and especially that SATA mode must set back to RAID _before_ reboot. That would have been enough...

Dear ASRock, I'm owner of one of your motherboards (Z97 Pro3) and I'm really angry. It is out of my understanding that even in the latest version of the UEFI (2.10) you are not able to store/restore the UEFI settings on update or AT LEAST give out a warning that the settings will be reset and have to be restored again. So thanks to this now I'm one of a lot of pissed off people out there that have lost their RAID system, because you reset the SATA mode from RAID to AHCI, which makes the RAID controller lose all its settings, changing all RAID drives to "non-raid" after the next boot. It would take how much time for one of your programmers to change this completely stupid behavior?! An hour maybe? Come on.