Replace Hard Drive in RAID 0 Setup

If you truly have RAID 0, you have striping which distributes all data across both drives.  You cannot replace one and expect to rebuild it as you could with RAID 1 (mirroring).  Are you sure you have RAID 0?

EDIT:  Incidentally, the E510 on-line docs strongly suggest that the machine only supports RAID 1.  If that is what you have, your second drive is a duplicate of the first.  See your user's guide for repair of a RAID 1, found here:  E510 User's Guide.  Info on RAID begins on page 27.

Oops!  Forgot one more thing; if your data is truly distributed as you have described, you don't have RAID at all, rather two independent drives.  You can still have the drives operate independently even if your controller is set to RAID On.  Use the Intel Matrix Storage Manager that is normally in your programs list to see the status of your drives.  If they are independent, they should both be listed as "non-member" drives. 

Thanks for your answers.  Here is more information:

Reviewing my notes again, I should have said RAID 1.

The Setup screen accessed by pressing F2 during startup says This is controlled by the RAID BIOS when a hard drive is selected.

Using cntrl I to enter the " Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM v5.02 1005ICH7R"

Disk/Volume information says ID=0, Name=ARRAY, Level = RAID1(Mirror),  Strip = N/A,  Size = 232.8GB, Status = Normal  Bootable = yes

The main menu has some options

Create RAID volume.  If this is selected  "Error  Not enough available space to create a volume" is displayed.  That's true, because there is no unallocated space.

If Reset Disks to Non-RAID is selected "Resetting RAID data will remove internal RAID structures from the selected RAID disks.  Removing these structures , the drive will revert back toa non-RAID disk, followed by a warning that all data on the disk will be lost.

The DataSafe option provides Norton Ghost 10, and images are stored on the second drive. Using Explorer Plus and Directory Opus, enhanced versions of Windows Explorer, clearly indicates the same folders are not located on each drive.

The computer also has a return to original factory settings option, accessed by pressing cntrl-F11 during startup.  There are three partitions on the main drive, Local disk C: a FAT partition called Dellutility, and a 3rd partition that Partition Magic says is CP/M, Conc...

The other physical drive is labeled Backup(D):

Dell offers some RAID options, but I did not request one.

I think Dell has a special configuration of RAID to lock up the drive, so the user doesn't make changes that will cause the "return to factory settings" option  and possibly the DataSafe option to not work.

I've read other Dell forum posts, where other users received a RAID configuration without requesting it and now want to remove it.

There is an Intel Matrix Storage Manager

Jim

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I think what you have is a pair of 250 GB disks in a RAID 1 that have been partitioned into the sections you have described.  If you have examined your owner's manual you will know that the recommended process is to first identify the failing disk, then replace it, followed by a re-build of the array using the appropriate option in the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.  The trouble message should identify the drive by serial number, which you should be able to use to figure out the port used for that drive; you should then remove the corresponding drive.  If you have chosen correctly, you should be able to start the computer and get a status message indicating that you have one healthy drive and one failed drive in the array.

If I am wrong, your C: drive should occupy nearly all of the 232 GB  on one of the drives reported in the RAID Option ROM status screen.  I'm guessing that if you check the properties of drive C: you will get something on the order of 160 GB.

I do have a pair of 250 GB disks.  Partition Magic displays a single disk drive of 238,409 MB.  On this disk, there is a 175, 554.9 MB local disk C: drive, a 59, 286.8MB backup D: drive, plus two very small drives for Datasafe, etc.

I've decided my original thought of switching between a RAID 1 setup and a single non-RAID hard drive while setting up the single drive probably won't work.  Thanks for your information.  I've learned much more about RAID than I knew a few days ago.  I could try switching between RAID and non-RAID, but using Cntrl I to get to the matrix manager doesn't work most of the time. I don't know why. 

Jim

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To be honest, two-drive RAIDs are of limited use on a home desktop.  RAID 0 is used by gamers who want to speed up data transfer to the max so as to improve play.  RAID 1 is sort of handy to avoid data loss on failure of a drive, but of course there are other methods to do this.  That makes the extra drive in RAID 1 sort of wasteful of drive space.

If you wish to preserve your RAID 1 all you should really need to do is isolate the drive that has quit working and replace it.  The RAID management software will make it easy to restore the array.

If you wish to do without RAID altogether, you still have the option of using either the CTRL-i option to use the ROM, or I think you might be able to get away with using Matrix Storage Manager from Windows, to break the array.  You will get a warning that the RAID and its data will be lost, but since all your data is on both the drives you should still be able to boot from the now single drive that remains.