Reinstall Win 7 x64 Pro and Reformat RAID1

Hi,

I'm currently have 1 SSD for OS and 2 HDD in RAID1 for data, all connnected to the same Intel controller on my EVGA X58 3x SLI motherboard. I'm planning to re-install Windows 7 x64 Pro on the SSD. While doing this, I would also like to reformat the 2 RAIDed HDD's. What are the steps that I need in order to reformat the RAID1?

My SATA mode is set to AHCI at the moment. If I set the SATA mode to RAID and I boot to Windows, I'll get BSOD after the Windows logo screen. I'm not having Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed. The last time I did so on my current OS (also Win 7 x64 Pro), I got some weird chkdsk error, in which I was given thousands of "Replacing invalid security id with default id ..." for files on the RAIDed drive.

I'm planning to reuse the same 2 HDD's for RAID1 after the reinstallation. I've already copied the current data on the RAIDed disks to some external USB source.

Please be specific, if possible, when you reply as I'm quite new . Methods that don't involve physically removing any drive are preferred.

Thank you.

Welcome!

This shouldn't be too hard.

First, I would suggest switching your SATA setting to RAID. If it doesn't work, change it back.

Then boot to your Windows 7 DVD and follow this tutorial: Clean Install Windows 7

When you get to here:



Click on Drive Options and format your RAID drives.

That shouldn't be to hard; the Windows 7 setup is pretty intuitive.

Let us know if you need more help.

~JK

Awesomeness!

Thank you so much. I'll try things out and update the progress here.

EDIT: Actually, I have a quick question.

The SSD has the last firmware on it that should support TRIM. If the SATA is set to RAID, will TRIM be actually supported?

I hope so. I'm not quite sure what the RAID setting does, but I would suspect that it would give you the maximum capabilities for your drive.