Win7 Reformat with Raid0

Hi everyone I was hoping to get some advice as I'm confused about something. I have a RC of Win7 that now I'm ready to put a clean install of a genuine Win7 OS. My current HDD setup is in Raid0 on that machine too. I want to be able to reformat both my physical HDD drives first then install Win7 again in Raid0. I know from previous that Win7 did not include a reformat(erase) option in the setup so I'm wondering what is the best way for me to reformat these 2 drives first?

I'm guessing take each one physically out of the case and hook them up seperately to another rig of mine, then reformat in just Windows then? This way they are erased of all old data. I just dont want to just install Win7 over the RC install I already have. I would think by doing so you are taking more chances of corrupted data and I don't need that kind of problem!

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks in advance.

JFAZ

It shouldn't be necessary to reformat your RAID drives prior to running the install. Boot from the install disk. When Setup asks you "Where do you want to install Windows?" click "Drive options (advanced)". From the next screen, you can format your drive/s. (You could also use your RAID setup in Bios to break and then rebuild the array prior to install, but this is really not necessary IMHO.)

Ok, so what your saying then is that if I just keep them in the Raid0 array and install Win7 to that drive after I goto the "advanced" option then, this will allow me to erase both drives completely? I have two 500GB septarate physical drives. Looks like the pictures you attached show a non-raid setup, as I thought that by the time you get to that stage you already had to establish th Raid drivers and it would only show 1 physical drive then. Am I mistaken that this part happens later in the setup process? I also did not think that Win7 did a full format as when I did the RC this section went way to quick to have formatted a 500GB or 1 TB drive.

If all you have is the RAID drive, then the setup will recognize that as a single drive and allow you to format it (assuming you have loaded the RAID drivers in the initial stage of Setup).

Ok, I understand. The only question left then is will the format section in the "advanced" option actually fully erase both drives? this is a major concern for me to have both of my physicaL drives fully erased instead of just writting the data over itself. It sure didn't seem like it erased the drive(s) before when I installed the RC and I did the format option. Like I said it went way too quick to have formatted/erased the drive(s) at least in my mind. Can you confirm tha the format option will indeed erase my drive(s) in the Win7 setup/advanced option?

I also thought that I had read/heard of many Win7 users complaining that Win7 did not have a real format option during setup, like WinXP does.

Ok well I've started the install now and went t the advanced settings and of course setup does not see my Raid array and shows nothing there so I choose to "Load Driver" and I have my USB stick in with the Raid drivers for my mobo (asus), however once I navigate to the driver and try to load it, it just keeps telling me that no device drivers found, etc. I saved the raid drivers to the USB stick that I just downloaded from asus's website (although I had to get Vista64 drivers) but from the RC client I remember I had to use those too as they were the compatible drivers for this type of thing. I'm not too sure how to get setup to recognize the Raid drivers (that are indeed there on the USB stck) so I can move forward to partition/format and install Win7. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong here? Setup can indeed see the USB stick and lets me navigate to the Raid driver, but again it's acting like the driver is not even there!

Please fill in your complete system specs (including your motherboard model) and I'm sure someone will be of assistance.

You ARE attempting to install a 64 bit version of Win7 - correct?

I was able to have the Win7 setup see my whole drive as if it saw it as 1 drive with the proper GB's of my two drives together. I never had to install any Raid drivers at all or even choose any. Is this wrong? I'm actually installing Win7 Pro 32 bit, is this my problem?