Lost Master drive status

[skirabbit]

Hi all

I was trying to set up a windows software raid array on my PC running windows 7 ( i did not want to go the reinstall route)- I installed an additional 3 drives and followed the instructions on you tube video I found. However when trying to create the mirror images my main boot drive lost that status and the computer would not boot up. removing all the other drives the computer booted up again. I cannot find how to give the master drive (boot) status back of my original drive. Adding any other drives now and the computer will not boot up.

thanks

 

[TVeblen]

Hello skirabbit. Welcome to the Forum.

If you post a screenshot of your Disk Management window - expanded so we can read everything, and with all 4 drives connected - then we might be able to see what is going on. It sounds like an issue with ACTIVE partitions.

Since the PC will not boot when all 4 drives are connected you may have to "hot swap" install them while the PC is running. Do this only if you have hot swap capability set in the BIOS, and be sure to take proper static precautions.

If you do not know what I am talking about then do not attempt this. In that case just post a screenshot of the single drive and we can see what we can do with that.

 

[skirabbit]

thanks

Hi I am travelling so cannot post the screenshot right now - what I can tell you though is I cannot boot up the computer anymore with the 4 drives - I have had to remove them. I think the issue was in following the instructions I converted my boot disc to a dynamic disk and then could not change it back to a boot disk. Not sure if this helps - I will only be back at my pc in a few days and will post the screen shot.

thanks

 

[TVeblen]

We will be here.

Most likely I expect to see two System Active partitions from the clone process. There should only be one. Windows will sometimes choke when faced with 2 Active partitions.

Might be helpful to post a link to that video.

 

[skirabbit]

thanks all - here is the screen shot

 

[TVeblen]

Not much information there. Can you answer some questions?



Also: what are disks 1, 3, and 4? Are these the 3 other hard drives, installed and connected?

 

[skirabbit]

sorry the smaller drive was my phone - The c drive is the only drive - the other bays are empty

 

[TVeblen]

Interesting. Disk Management is showing Disks 1, 3, and 4 as Removable Drives with no media. Can you offer any explanation for that? One thing is that modern printers show up as removable drives due to their external ports. You could test that by just unplugging them.