This post is more than 5 years old
3 Posts
0
57329
Convert RAID to non-RAID?
I have a Dell machine with two 1TB drives in a RAID array. I'd like to convert these drives to a regular, non-raid array. How do I go about that? In the BIOS I see that the sata is setup for RAID but I don't want to change it there without knowing what else would kick in.
Thanks!
John
jhuntington
3 Posts
1
March 5th, 2013 19:00
Thanks to you both for the quick responses! Through the help of Dell support chat, I broke the RAID1 array into two stand alone drives (Control - I at startup, and then "Delete Raid Array". I can now see the second drive in Windows, at bootup, etc but the Windows Disk Configuration utility doesn't allow me to create any volumes. It says it has a "signature conflict". Is there a way I can format this section drive?
Thanks!
John
DELL-Chinmay S
1.8K Posts
0
March 5th, 2013 17:00
Hi John,
Please share the system model and operating system installed.
It depends what type of RAID is shipped with your computers. Ideally in Dell systems, only Raid 0 (Striping) and Raid 1 (mirroring) is supported. A RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data evenly across two or more hard drives (striped) without parity information for speed. RAID 0 provides no data redundancy. RAID 1 is an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two hard drives.
If the computer was shipped with Raid 0 and if you disable RAID 0 from system BIOS, the data on the hard drives may not be accessible. However, if the system was shipped with RAID1, you may simply use one hard drive to boot your computer to operating system and may format the second hard drive for data storage.
If the system has RAID 0, you may back up the data and then may change the RAID options from system BIOS.
Hope this helps.
ejn63
1 Rookie
1 Rookie
•
87.5K Posts
0
March 5th, 2013 18:00
If you break a RAID 0 array, it's not just the data on the second drive that's lost - you lose ALL data on BOTH drives. Breaking a RAID 0 array means starting over with a completely clean install from ground up.
jhuntington
3 Posts
0
March 5th, 2013 21:00
Hmm, Not sure why, but I had rebooted and couldn't addressed the drive. I figured I'd try again tomorrow and then I rebooted one last time and then the drive came right up in the Disk Management screen! So now I'm all set, thanks!