It`s here!

If you only have 2 drives and want to use the 2'nd as a storage drive then you cannot run a RAID configuration at all.

Most likeley you will have to use the Dell restore cd's to reinstall everything on a single drive then just use the second as a storage partition.

Here is a quick reference to the different types of RAID configs with the required # of drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels

First of all, which RAID setup do you currently have? RAID 1 or RAID 0?

 

It appears you maybe have RAID 1. If so, you only have to delete (break) the RAID 1 volume which will leave you with 2 identical drives with identical data. You can delete the volume via the Intel Matrix ROM utility (CTRL-I) at boot up. Or you can use the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software within Windows by going into Advance Mode view, selecting the volume, right click and choose Delete Volume. You will notice that you will be warned all your data will be lost, but with RAID 1, you will not lose any data. So, you can ignore the warning.

 

If you have RAID 0, I'm not familar with RAID 0 so hopefully someone else can advise you what to do to delete that array and have 2 separate drives.

 

Either way, you'll want to backup your data before deleting your RAID volume.

I guess thats the problem. I don`t know either. My old PC has 2 drives and I couldn`t tell you either how it was configured. But, here want I want to do with my new system.

 

I ordered the 420 with 2 drives. I run a small music studio using Cubase. On the first, I just want to install my programs. Any files that are created by those programs, I want to put on drive 2. Maybe with the Quad Core systems it doesn`t matter any more for speed, but thats the way I was told to produce more speed out of my PIII. That way, one drive was running the software and the other drive was streaming audio that was open in the program. It seemed to work very well.

 Last night after I installed Cubase, I tried to save a file to the second hard drive and it wouldn`t let me. A warning about file path or something. But, it would save the audio files to C drive and the shortcut on D drive. Does this make sense?? I DON`T want this to be the case.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

RAID 0 is striped, that is both drives are seen as one drive (2 x 320 = 1 x 640 for example) with the data spread over both drives. breaking RAID 0 will require a re-install.

 

I am not sure if the OP has RAID or not...

how many drives do you see in windows explorer? You should have c: and d: for sure. D: is a recovery partition about 15gb and not physically the second drive. If you don't see a second (actually third) drive then you are RAID. Now how big is drive C? If it is about double the actual drrive size you are RAID 0. You shouldd also be able to see if raid is on in the BIOS. If RAID is on and your drives are not RAID you will see a message at boot. If RAID is not turned on in the BIOS, you can't be RAID...

 

Your documentation should say what you have as well... 

Ok. Here what 'My Computer' says:

 

OS (C), datapart1(D) and RECOVERY (E).

 

I looked at the BIOS and RAID AUTODETECT is ON.

 

 

Ian

If you have the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software installed, launch it and it should tell you, within the Advance Mode view, what RAID level you have setup (0 or 1). Click the volume label (e.g. Volume_0000) under "Volumes" and it should tell you the RAID level in the right hand Information pane.

No. I don`t have the Matrix manager. Should I?

 

Ian

look under sata (Dell's drivers page). You can also get this potentially with ctrl-i at bootup. I am not running so RAID so I don't want to steer you wrong....