Windows 7 - Should RAID be disabled prior to install?

It will be a week tomorrow since I received my Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade software. I have run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and removed all questionable software and drivers. I have attempted to upgrade to Windows 7 at least half a dozen times without success. First it was a BitLocker Drive Encryption problem, then my DVD drive just vanished, and finally repeated hang ups.

Early this summer I installed Windows 7 RC on my old XP desktop and the installation was error free and the computer ran very well. So far these attempted installations have been a complete nightmare. I've reached the point where, as others have said, "I'm getting too old for this." I have never owned a Mac, but one may be in my near future.

Before sending the software back to Amazon, I'm going to give this one last shot - a clean install. I'm running Vista Home Premium 64-bit and using Intel Matrix Storage Manager for my RAID 1 array. Should I disable the RAID array prior to attempting a clean install?

Thanks for any help with this installation. This forum is a great resource for Windows 7 advice.

There's really little reason at all to run RAID1 on a desktop system, but if you tried doing a clean install, it should work without issue. I'm not sure by what you are asking though...if it should work, or if you'd be okay with disabling RAID. If it was me, I'd disable RAID, use one drive in the system, and stick the second drive in an external USB/eSATA cage for backups. RAID1 isn't a method of backup anyway, so that's a moot point.

Welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm going to guess since you have 6GB RAM your trying to install Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

Agree with DeaconFrost that you will have better luck if you disable RAID. You can put it back after the install completes. Just use one HD for the install, leave the other disconnected.

First thing I would try is to remove all the RAM except one card.
Windows 7 64bit is very finicky with RAM, we have seen a lot of success doing this.

Remove all peripheral devices, leave only the monitor, keyboard and mouse, also leave the internet connected.

Is your graphics card connected by DVI cable?
We have seen a lot of installs complete if this is disconnected and use the VGA instead. Or if that doesn't work take out the graphics card and use the on board graphics.

Let us know how it's going.

Thanks for the responses. Yes, my graphics card is connected by a DVI cable - I think there are (2) DVI connectors on the card. I do not believe the XPS has integrated graphics. Would it help to use a DVI-VGA adapter and connect via a VGA cable to the monitor?

I will try a clean install tonight after:
1. disabling RAID
2. removing excess RAM
3. removing peripherals except for monitor, keyboard & mouse

Thanks again...I will keep you posted.

Nope. If your card had VGA and DVI, you'd use the VGA port. Your card only has DVI, so installing an adapter doesn't change how the card operates.

If your computer has integrated graphics the VGA (most likely) will be on the motherboard, but it might be blocked off since it looks like you got a pc from dell (since you did get a graphics card). If you see some black covers or anything covering the motherboard options, you could unscrew them and it would have several things, mine had a VGA and some other weird stuff.

Not sure how comfortable you are with stuff, so if your not don't try to mess with it, and get help from someone or maybe we can help

Well, the insanity continues...I went into setup and disabled RAID and rebooted to make sure the system would, in fact, still boot up. It booted fine and when I checked "Computer" I found that my DVD drive wasn't listed! I rebooted and went into setup and checked the boot sequence. The CD/DVD drive (listed first) showed "not present".

My XPS does not have integrated graphics. I did check my nVidia GeForce 9500 GT card and it has (1) DVI out, (1) VGA out, and (1) S-Video out, so I can hook up a VGA cable to the monitor. Apparently this is an early 9500 card.

I find it almost laughable that, in order to "upgrade" to Windows 7, I have to disable RAID, disable the DVI monitor cable and use a VGA cable, AND remove 4 gigs of RAM! I could better understand this if I were upgrading from XP, but I'm upgrading from Vista Home Premium 64-bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. This is the most frustrating Windows upgrade I have ever been thru and I've been thru plenty - starting with the DOS to Windows upgrade that came on 13 floppys!

I'm beginning to question whether this "upgrade" is even worth it. My computer runs very well with Vista (aside from the occasional hiccup) and my only real complaint is the really, really, long shut down sequence.

The problem is the dated RAID config. There is no reason to run such a redundant array when backup imaging (which is built in in Windows 7, and excellent) makes a failed HDD recoverable with a 15 minute reimage to replacement HDD.

+1, however I prefer running Windows Home Server and backing up nightly (gotta love those incremental backups). A restore is a LAN connection away.

what is the advantage with Win home server? how many workstations? can u explain it 's application to a situation where 7 home computers are networked?