Windows 7 - Want to wipe RAID 1, install Windows 7 64 bit

Hi all,
I want to upgrade from my 32 bit Vista to 7. I have a RAID 1 of two 320 GB drives, and I want to reformat it, and clean install windows 7. Will the RAID 1 be kept? Or do I have to reconfigure it on install? Thanks.

Welcome to the Windows 7 Forums! kat3c

In order to break up an array you often have to repartition each drive while the other one or more are unplugged. You should be able to reformat the present volume in order to see a clean install of 7 without problem unless you decide to use one drive for something else like storage.

For the 64bit install you definitely have to reformat it to install 7 fresh. The option to upgrade direct from the 32bit Windows to 64bit platform isn't supported to begin with requiring that.

Night Hawk,
Thanks for the reply. So, let me make sure I have this straight. If I don't make an special effort to break the array, 7 should just install as normal, retaining the RAID config. Reformatting will reformat both drives simultaneously, keeping the RAID 1 array, and then installing 7 will install it in a RAID 1 array, meaning I'll end up with a mirrored, clean-install RAID 1 system.


By the way, I'm planning on partitioning the drive into a primary and an extended partition with some logical partitions first when reformatting, and then after the disk is wiped by that, installing 7 (on the first, primary partition). That won't be a problem, will it? Thanks.

There is no way to say for sure until you try install. Windows 7 doesn't much like dated RAID technology, which isn't necessary now that drive imaging is built in.

Your best bet is to un-RAID to install to one HD, then format the other after install to use as data drive, etc.

But if you want to try RAID, go ahead and boot DVD to see what happens with Custom install. Let us know exactly what happens if problems arise during install.

Well, I done did it, and it went smoothly. I did decide to get rid of the RAID array, so before anything I went into the BIOS and set the two disks to non-RAID. On rebooting, I just had two exact copies of my drive, both bootable, no loss of data. I then booted to a live Gparted CD, and first repartitioned the first drive for the Windows 7 install (primary partition), with an extended for partitions for data, and an Ubuntu install {4 logical partitions, ntfs, ext4 (linux root), linux-swap, and ext4 (linux home)}. After that finished, without exiting Gparted, I reformatted the second drive as a single NTFS primary partition for additional data storage.

THEN, I rebooted to the Windows 7 DVD, and installed, took 15 minutes. Rebooted immediately to my Ubuntu USB install drive, and that took about 10 minutes, and done! Except for reinstalling programs/setup now and playing. No apparent issues so far, not with the install anyway. Some programs reinstalling are being a pain, like iTunes made two copies of every song file, but that'll give me something to do for the next couple of days. Thanks for your comments/help.

GParted can certainly make life a bit easier seeing everything done in one boot!

Check to see if the 100mb of drive space is used at the beginning of the 7 primary however. When creating a new primary with GParted rather then with the drive tools on the 7 dvd the install goes on without seeing the 100mb reserved for the repair tools as a startup option. That seems a drawback of using 3rd party partitioning programs.

As far as arrays at this late they serve best with server applications rather then desktops. Apparently you had a Raid 0 being mirrored not an actual Raid 1 striped array. I ended up with the same thing when setting an array with the RC last summer. To dissolve the bond part between the two drives one was unplugged while GParted was used to delete and repartition the other.