Windows 7 Pro won't boot in RAID-0


  1. burntoast
    Posts : 7
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       New #1

    Windows 7 Pro won't boot in RAID-0


    Hello. My PC is setup with two hard drives as RAID-0 (1 partition) and it has refused to boot Windows 7 for the past few days. The computer simply shows a black screen after it goes through the BIOS screens. Pressing F8 to enter Safe Mode does not work at all.

    This issue has arisen after I tried installing a video card (XFX Geforce 8800 GTX) without uninstalling my old video drivers. It's still a mystery to me how installing the card would cause problems with Windows or my hard drives. Here's what I've done so far to troubleshoot:

    I created a System Recovery boot disk because I lack the original Windows 7 installation cd. System Restore does not work, nor does the Image function. System Repair simply hangs for an unbelievable amount of time.

    After scanning my hard drives for various info, I found out that my first hdd is listed as NTFS, yet my second one is RAW. Subsequently, the C:\ drive is also listed as RAW, and I cannot use Chkdsk.exe on it. Through a cmd prompt, I used Bootrec.exe /FixMbr and /FixBoot, but it did not seem to fix the issue. I also used Bootrec.exe /ScanOs to see if the Windows 7 installation still existed, yet it came up with nothing.

    I've managed to use a program called RAID Reconstructor, via a PE Builder boot disk, in order to copy all my hard drives' sectors over to my external hard drive. The external is now hooked up to a second PC that I'm using to troubleshoot. It seems that all of my personal files are intact and working perfectly fine, and the file names are also correct. I don't really know how to check my Windows/System32 files for corruption.

    I'd like to fix Windows 7 without having to format the hard drives. Since I lack the Windows 7 installation cd, I can only install Windows XP while lacking 64-bit support. Since I'd like to avoid this, I was wondering if there was a way to get Windows 7 back up and running. But I suppose this isn't possible without getting my second hdd back to NTFS format.

    PS: I apologize if this thread is in the wrong forum. It just seems like an all-encompassing issue.

    Edit: Should I simply format my hard drives and copy all my files over from the external? I wonder if this would restore Windows 7, but I suppose it wouldn't be as simple as that.
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  3. Dwarf
    Posts : 9,582
    Windows 8.1 Pro RTM x64
       New #2

    Hi burntoast and welcome to Windows 7 Forums

    When you boot up, just after the BIOS POST has completed, do you get a prompt to press F10 (or some other key) to enter the RAID configuration? This will only appear if there are HDDs set up to use RAID in the BIOS. If you don't get this option, check the settings in the BIOS to see if the disks are still configured to be in a RAID array (the default is non-RAID).
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  4. burntoast
    Posts : 7
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    Hello and thank you Dwarf. :) I am able to press F10 in order to enter the RAID configuration screen. The array is listed as the following:

    Boot ID Status Vendor Array Model Name
    Yes 1 Healthy Nvidia Stripe 465.77G

    The Details screen lists the following:

    Adapt Channel M/S Index Disk Model Name
    2 0 Master 0 ST3250824AS
    2 1 Master 1 ST3250824AS

    The Capacity of each hdd is 232.88GB, Striping Width is 2, and Striping Block is 64k. I'm not the one who built this computer, so I'm not sure if this matches the original RAID configuration. I've never changed it in the past, however.

    Edit: I'm currently downloading a program called Ultimate Boot CD and I'll see if I can run some more diagnostics on the hard drives.
    Last edited by burntoast; 26 Dec 2010 at 15:19.
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