needtowork

hello there.

it it possible to turn a raid off and re-format only one drive?
without loosing the other?
maybe from bios system setup and switching from RAID to IDE?

i believe it's installed in the bios. not as software. as a mirror?
how can i tell?

i don't want a raid anymore and have no experience with raids.
i would like to break the raid and have more space overall as well as partition the drive with the operating system so that my system files and my project file are on separate partitions.

If i can't separate the drive without initializing i'm prepared to do so but if i can avoid it that would be fantastic. However would i have to do anything special or can i just use the windows xp installer to have it break and initialize the drives...??

any advice on this would be much appreciated.
i just want to make this change as painless as possible.

many thanks.

svc

Mon

Hi!
You cna ceratinly do that. You need to turn off raid from system set up. Enter system set up ..if windows bios then select drivces and press enter and then select SATA operation and press enter. Select Raid Autodetect/ATA in the right part of the window and press enter. Confirm the warning. Press Esc and select save/exit. System will restart.

Note: Pls make sure u r using mirroring before u do this. If you are using striping then u will lose all the data.

Regards

needtowork

how can i tell if i am using mirroring or striping?

many thanks.

Mon

very simple...say if you have 2 hdds of 250 GB each and the space you can use to save data is just 250 GB and not 500 GB then you are using mirroring

needtowork

I went into system setup under drive configuration...

there is no option for Raid Autodetect/ATA

rather i have the following options


ATA/IDE Mode <Native>
Configure SATA as <RAID>
S.M.A.R.T. <Enable>
Detected SATA Device <Intel RAID-1>

Hard Disk Pre-Delay [0]


my guess it to go in to Configure SATA as.... and switch it to IDE since the only other option is AHCI (with the warning "selecting AHCI will only work in VISTA...") i am running XP.

is my thinking correct? should i just switch it to IDE??


Also, what should i expect? what happens when i get the raid turned off? will the second drive just show up automatically?

thanks much.

svc

Mon

select ATA/IDE Mode <Native> ...yes u should see 2 diff hdd in my computer

needtowork

Can someone from TFS chime in on this to confirm?


i have read a lot of conflicting information on other forums about needing drivers and backing up registries. Is it possible that i will need a driver ready just in case my motherboard flips out when the RAID is not on? Any other issues that i should be aware of when turning off the RAID?

much appreciated.

svc

koala

Good advice from Mon. You're in safe hands.

needtowork

wonderful.

ok, well. i'm at System Setup Drive Configuration...
and for some reason ATA/IDE mode is not selectable, and is grayed out. Guess that needs to stay Native?
I can select Configure SATA and i have an option for IDE or AHCI.

should i select IDE under Configure SATA and do a restart since that seems to be the only option?

thanks much.

svc

thanks much.

needtowork

I selected IDE since that was the only option and it brought me back to the main drive configuration menu.

Now ATA/IDE Mode IS selectable, with a choice of the folloiwing...
Native or Legacy,
which should it be?

Also, it added a bunch of SATA Ports listed 0 - 5 all [Not Installed], however none of these are selectable. does this mean that i'm missing drivers?

if ok as is i can just save and exit right?

thanks much.