Can't get all of my RAID1 drive space

[hvdave]

Hello,

Very nice forum here!

I've installed W7 pro on a 50GB partition on a RAID1 array but it seems that I can't make any new partitions on the remaining unallocated disk space. My array is a pair of WD RE3 500GB drives, so there's at least another 440GB available.

The problem might have started when I made the partition originally in the BIOS RAID setup. I set the size to 50GB there but it wouldn't let me make another one. I figured I'd be able to do that in W7.

Now I'm thinking I should have set the partition size in the BIOS RAID setup to be the whole 500GB and then during the install of W7 set the boot partition to 50GB.

To top it all off, the 100MB system reserved partition ended up on my 160GB backup drive.

I'm about to just start over again with the backup drive disconnected. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

Win7 seems to be allergic to RAID.

You might want to default to AHCI or SATA conroller with one HD.

 

[hvdave]

Solved my issue.

(1) Disconnected my 160G drive that I will use for backup later on.
(2) Booted up to BIOS and removed the 50G partition I made earlier from a fresh install from the RAID1 array.
(3) Created a new RAID1 partition consisting of the entire 500G (I have two 500G drives configured for RAID1).
(4) Installed Windows 7 again fresh to the new partition. During installation after you load the motherboard RAID driver, I made a 60G partition for Windows 7. The rest of the 500G remained unallocated.
(5) Finished the install.
(6) Opened up the Computer Managment > Disk Managment window and then made my additional partitions for the rest of the drive. I'm using a total of 4 partitions plus the 100MB one that the install makes.
(7) Good to go now.