Solved Installing Windows 7 Getting Rid of RAID

[DanyD]

Hi guys

I will be upgrading to Win7 soon from XP and i have a few questions before i jump in head first

So basicly i have a RAID0 setup at the mo on 2 500gb SATA drives and reading on here and other places tht really i gain no extra performance on it and just upping my risk of loosing my DATA. So wha i want to do is get rid of my RAID0 and install Windows to 1 drive then just use the other for games music and other stuff. Now i no 500gb is alot for just an os but i dont want to buy another HD. So do i formatt the RAID0 First then split it or how do i go about this.

Also any tips would be nice as i havent installed an OS other than XP for ages

THanks for Reading

 

[Brink]

Hello Dany,

You would need to split/delete the RAID in the RAID setup screen at boot first. Usually you have a key combination like CNTL+I that you press quickly when you see the RAID screen at boot to enter the RAID setup screen. From here, you would just split/delete the RAID.

From this point, you would just boot from your Windows 7 installation disc, and select a HDD to install Windows 7 on.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

or

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[DanyD]

Thanks mate just went through my boot setup and found my RAID settings. There are two options one delete and one is clear i guess clear would formatt the RAID but keep to together and delete will formatt and splitt the RAID but ill check the MB's manuel to check.

Thanks for the Help

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Dany.

Yes, that would be correct.

Please let us know how it went.

 

[DanyD]

Hi guys i have just installed windows 7 and im really enjoying it the install took next to no time and went real smooth.

One problem if u can call it tht when i split up my raid my system never formatted it. I thought tht the win7 install would ask me to formatt my drive later on in the process anyway so i just carried on. I then came to the screen where windows ask's u what hard drive u want to install in on and it showed my 2 hard drive both wit just shy of 500gb free on each. I went to formatt but it was greyed out and so i couldnt click it. I picked a drive anyway and the install went through no problems.

I got into win7 and windows only saw 1 drive i went to my computer found the other drive formatted it and called it ,E: the formatt took maybe 60 seconds. To me something seems odd is this normall :/

 

[Brink]

Hi Dany,

No worries. This is normal. The drive probably would have needed to be deleted before it allowed you to format it. However, when you do a clean install, Windows 7 will format the selected drive by default before it actually installs on it anyways.

 

[DanyD]

cheers for the fast reply

apart from a issuse i had wit updates not installing when i restarted my pc for the first time, Which i fixed my installing them while in windows i have had no problems at all and really enjoying the little features big step from XP

 

[Brink]

That's great news. It may take a bit to get use to the differences between XP and Windows 7. Please feel free to create new threads to ask any questions you may have on anything.