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del_rob

2 Posts

3229

January 11th, 2008 13:00

how do i remove raid?

help!  i've been on the phone with dell for 12+ hours already and i'm at my wits end!
 
system:  xps410 with 2 500gb hard drives, 2gb memory, vista home premium, dvd-rw, another dvd-rom.
 
btw, i had my motherboard, cables, and fan replaced by a dell contractor.  after 11 hours we finally got my RAID1 (mirror) to work.  however, last night after i loaded all my software, it failed again.  i just want to set up my computer to run windows without raid, so that i can see  and use both hard drives..  we've deleted my hard drives many times, so if i have to clear them out again, that's ok.
 
please give me details (like how to format my drives again, and how i remove raid.)  this all has to be done in the bios because windows won't come up.  (both my harddrives are good, i verified.)  i'm somewhat familar with all the bios stuff. (f12, f2, ctrl-I)  i just need detailed instructions.


Message Edited by del_rob on 01-11-2008 09:57 AM

Message Edited by del_rob on 01-11-2008 09:57 AM

TomXPS

1.3K Posts

January 11th, 2008 15:00

You may have a bad disk drive.  But anyway to disable RAID 1, just hit CTL I on boot up.  You should get a screen that allows you to delete the RAID array.   You get a warning about loosing all the data on the RAID.  But assuming you have RAID 1, should not be a problem.  After the break up you should have 2 Drives with the same contents.
 
I been using RAID 1 from Dell for over 4 years on one system and 1 year on a XPS 410 with no problems.  Saved me on my oldest system when I had a drive failure.
 
Anyway after re-loading the system you can setup RAID by setting it up with the Intel Storage Manager.  This will allow you to migrate the drives to RAID 1.
 
To use you second drive as more storage just use the disk manager to create/delete and format partitions on the drive.   To get to disk manager right click my computer and select manage, disk manager will be one of the options.
 

del_rob

2 Posts

January 11th, 2008 16:00

I ran the diagnostics and the hard drives passed.  Could I still have a bad drive?  Is failure of raid usually due to a bad hard drive?
 
Thanks for the info, thus far.

TomXPS

1.3K Posts

January 11th, 2008 18:00

Well I had 2 failures on my XPS Gen 2.  A SATA cable that was bad first 2 weeks of owning, and a bad drive after about 3.5 years.    In all cases I had no issue with my files or OS.  Just replaced the cable/disk and was back to normal.  Thats why you have RAID 1.   You seem to have your fair share of problems, not sure what to tell you.
 
Seems like with all your problems they should replace the 2 disk or just give you a new system, it would be vary frustrating to work with support so many times.
 
I been lucky with the three dell systems I bought only had 2 call support a couple times.
 
If you backup all you data you could restore your system to the defaults by pressing F8 on startup or booting from OS CD and selecting I think the repair option.  Anyway there is a way of getting back to the orginal Dell image.   Of couse any of your data will be lost.
 
Good luck.
 

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