You should use the model name--xps 420 instead of the number. Adding up your drives it sounds like you have only one drive of about 160GB that is partitioned into C and D. That's why you never got RAID to work. The xps 420 came with a 160gb drive standard. You don't need to change the bios to reformat unless you made changes to the bios. The bios does list RAID, but that doesn't mean you have a raid setup. You can open up your computer and see the hard drive or you can look at Disk Management in Administrative tools to see all your drives--optical as well as hard drives.
To reformat you boot to your windows reinstall disk and reformat and install windows. Directions HERE. Now might be a good time to install a larger hard drive. You can add as a second drive or replace your current drive.
Edit: That D partition was your Recovery Drive for reinstalling windows and the factory installed programs. It is useless now since it was changed and used for Backups. That partition is now hidden on new computers so it cannot be used.
Thanks... I didn't think that I had partioned my drive when I wset up RAID but that explains why I could never get more than 37 GB on my backup drive. However, I was fairly sure that I had specifically ordered two160 GB Drives on my system to support RAID. I looked at the the Disk Management and do not see the second drive, but I'll make a visual check tomorrow, too
I did not want to reformat if at all possible. I hope I can just add and use a second drive without reformatting.
What you are seeing is normal for a pair of drives configured for RAID 1, Mirroring. You would get a more informative report, however, if you brought up the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Console. You should find this in the All Programs section of the Start menu. The console will report on the status of each drive and tell you what type of RAID you are using, if any.
And yes, there are two drives in your photo.
EDIT: As for your question on using the drives individually, you must break the array using the Intel RAID Option ROM setup screen. On starting your computer you should see the Dell screen during the self test immediately followed by the RAID status screen. Press CTRL and i at the same time during that screen to bring up the setup page. Choose the option to reset the drives to Non-RAID. You will get a warning that all your data will be deleted, but this is not true when using RAID 1. When you have successfully broken the array you will have two identical drives. Note: When you break the array the computer will only boot easily from a drive connected to SATA 0, the first SATA port. Dell occasionally ships computers that have RAID configurations with the RAID drives attached to SATA 2 and 3, the third and fourth ports. If you leave the drives on those ports you may not get the computer to boot unless you switch one of the drives to SATA 0.
Thank you for your instructions above... That is what I was looking for.
I followed your instructions above to reset my drives to Non-RAID (both drives). The system responded as you described including the warning about data deletion. The system did continue to boot normally albeit a bit slower. I took a look at 'My Computer" display and both drives showed with the same size. However, both seemed to be filled to the same near full capacity with only approx. 12 GB Free. The system was still a bit sluggish and I was figuring that the system was going through some form of load balancing with the drives and was not finished. As I was leaving for the weekend I had to shut down before I thought the system finished. When I return on Sunday I will again boot the system and let it run throughout the night. Does this activity seem normal? I expected to see a second drive with full capacity free.
RAID 1 is equivalent to having a back-up drive that automatically copies everything on your primary hard drive. When you write to the RAID, the same information is provided simultaneously to both hard drives. That is why they are identical when you break the array. Once the array has been deleted, however, you are using only one drive and you are free to reformat the second drive in order to use it as a data drive. If you left both drives connected after you reset the drives to Non-RAID the second drive should have been assigned its own drive letter. If you should decide to reformat the second drive you should use the tools in My Computer. Since Windows will not allow you to format the system drive, using the tools within Windows will help ensure formatting of the correct drive.
Thanks very much for your reply. That is how I understood RAID-0 to work. I just did not know that I could not see the RAID backup drive and therefore never knew that the backups were occuring. A little bit of information really clears up the picture and I have a much greater appreciation for the RAID system now. I'm contemplating upgrading to a new larger RAID system ($$$) but in the mean time have deleted the RAID array and formated the second drive with the tools within Windows as recommended.
The system is still quite a bit sluggish which is troubling me a bit. I was thinking that the system would view the new second formatted drive as a gold mine of avialble resource and automatically immediately start using it to spread data across. I thought that system performance would noticably improve also. However, that does not seem to be so. Did I miss something in the formatting or is this just an internal extra storage space that has to be specifically addressed?
Drive C: is normally the only one that Windows handles pretty much automatically. Additional drives are usually up to you unless the file system becomes damaged, in which case Windows will take note of that and automatically run chkdsk on the problem drive.
Your computer might be running slow due to the lack of room on your system drive. I noted that the reason you wanted to break the array in the first place is that your mass storage space was getting pretty low. Windows uses space on the hard drive for a scratch pad file; with older versions of Windows it was called a swap file, now it is simply referred to as virtual memory. For smooth operation Windows needs a sizable number of contiguous sectors on the hard drive that it can use as it would use RAM. Once you have used a drive for a while, writing and erasing files, the addresses of the virtual memory start getting moved out closer to the maximum limit of the hard drive. When you have so much data stored that you have less than 10% of the drive's capacity left, Windows gets downright slow because it no longer has a large enough section of the drive to use for virtual memory. Remember that the virtual memory must use contiguous sectors; your normal saving and deleting of files does not require that, instead just selecting space that isn't used.
You can remedy this by moving the data in My Documents to a new My Documents folder on your second drive, but if you do that there are some things you need to watch out for. Windows will not automatically use the My Documents folder that you make on the second drive. When you store data you will need to be sure that you have the path set correctly in your Save command. I think there is a way to get Windows to use the second drive as a default, but I'm afraid I don't know that procedure.
Mary G
4 Operator
•
20.1K Posts
0
June 16th, 2011 14:00
You should use the model name--xps 420 instead of the number. Adding up your drives it sounds like you have only one drive of about 160GB that is partitioned into C and D. That's why you never got RAID to work. The xps 420 came with a 160gb drive standard. You don't need to change the bios to reformat unless you made changes to the bios. The bios does list RAID, but that doesn't mean you have a raid setup. You can open up your computer and see the hard drive or you can look at Disk Management in Administrative tools to see all your drives--optical as well as hard drives.
To reformat you boot to your windows reinstall disk and reformat and install windows. Directions HERE. Now might be a good time to install a larger hard drive. You can add as a second drive or replace your current drive.
Edit: That D partition was your Recovery Drive for reinstalling windows and the factory installed programs. It is useless now since it was changed and used for Backups. That partition is now hidden on new computers so it cannot be used.
rsedgley
6 Posts
0
June 16th, 2011 15:00
Thanks... I didn't think that I had partioned my drive when I wset up RAID but that explains why I could never get more than 37 GB on my backup drive. However, I was fairly sure that I had specifically ordered two160 GB Drives on my system to support RAID. I looked at the the Disk Management and do not see the second drive, but I'll make a visual check tomorrow, too
I did not want to reformat if at all possible. I hope I can just add and use a second drive without reformatting.
rsedgley
6 Posts
0
June 17th, 2011 08:00
I was fairly sure that I had specifically ordered two160 GB Drives on my system to support RAID.
When I visually chcked this morning I did see two drives. I have a photo I could send and a snapshot of my Disk Management report display.
Am I correct that there are two disk drives? How can I get to utilize the second drive without a reformat?
Let me know how I can forwrd the images if needed.
Thanks, Ron
rsedgley
6 Posts
0
June 17th, 2011 09:00
My Disk Drives
my Disk Management report
jackshack
6.4K Posts
0
June 17th, 2011 12:00
What you are seeing is normal for a pair of drives configured for RAID 1, Mirroring. You would get a more informative report, however, if you brought up the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Console. You should find this in the All Programs section of the Start menu. The console will report on the status of each drive and tell you what type of RAID you are using, if any.
And yes, there are two drives in your photo.
EDIT: As for your question on using the drives individually, you must break the array using the Intel RAID Option ROM setup screen. On starting your computer you should see the Dell screen during the self test immediately followed by the RAID status screen. Press CTRL and i at the same time during that screen to bring up the setup page. Choose the option to reset the drives to Non-RAID. You will get a warning that all your data will be deleted, but this is not true when using RAID 1. When you have successfully broken the array you will have two identical drives. Note: When you break the array the computer will only boot easily from a drive connected to SATA 0, the first SATA port. Dell occasionally ships computers that have RAID configurations with the RAID drives attached to SATA 2 and 3, the third and fourth ports. If you leave the drives on those ports you may not get the computer to boot unless you switch one of the drives to SATA 0.
rsedgley
6 Posts
0
June 17th, 2011 21:00
Thank you for your instructions above... That is what I was looking for.
I followed your instructions above to reset my drives to Non-RAID (both drives). The system responded as you described including the warning about data deletion. The system did continue to boot normally albeit a bit slower. I took a look at 'My Computer" display and both drives showed with the same size. However, both seemed to be filled to the same near full capacity with only approx. 12 GB Free. The system was still a bit sluggish and I was figuring that the system was going through some form of load balancing with the drives and was not finished. As I was leaving for the weekend I had to shut down before I thought the system finished. When I return on Sunday I will again boot the system and let it run throughout the night. Does this activity seem normal? I expected to see a second drive with full capacity free.
Thanks, Ron
jackshack
6.4K Posts
0
June 18th, 2011 00:00
RAID 1 is equivalent to having a back-up drive that automatically copies everything on your primary hard drive. When you write to the RAID, the same information is provided simultaneously to both hard drives. That is why they are identical when you break the array. Once the array has been deleted, however, you are using only one drive and you are free to reformat the second drive in order to use it as a data drive. If you left both drives connected after you reset the drives to Non-RAID the second drive should have been assigned its own drive letter. If you should decide to reformat the second drive you should use the tools in My Computer. Since Windows will not allow you to format the system drive, using the tools within Windows will help ensure formatting of the correct drive.
rsedgley
6 Posts
0
June 20th, 2011 11:00
Thanks very much for your reply. That is how I understood RAID-0 to work. I just did not know that I could not see the RAID backup drive and therefore never knew that the backups were occuring. A little bit of information really clears up the picture and I have a much greater appreciation for the RAID system now. I'm contemplating upgrading to a new larger RAID system ($$$) but in the mean time have deleted the RAID array and formated the second drive with the tools within Windows as recommended.
The system is still quite a bit sluggish which is troubling me a bit. I was thinking that the system would view the new second formatted drive as a gold mine of avialble resource and automatically immediately start using it to spread data across. I thought that system performance would noticably improve also. However, that does not seem to be so. Did I miss something in the formatting or is this just an internal extra storage space that has to be specifically addressed?
Thanks, Ron
jackshack
6.4K Posts
0
June 20th, 2011 13:00
Drive C: is normally the only one that Windows handles pretty much automatically. Additional drives are usually up to you unless the file system becomes damaged, in which case Windows will take note of that and automatically run chkdsk on the problem drive.
Your computer might be running slow due to the lack of room on your system drive. I noted that the reason you wanted to break the array in the first place is that your mass storage space was getting pretty low. Windows uses space on the hard drive for a scratch pad file; with older versions of Windows it was called a swap file, now it is simply referred to as virtual memory. For smooth operation Windows needs a sizable number of contiguous sectors on the hard drive that it can use as it would use RAM. Once you have used a drive for a while, writing and erasing files, the addresses of the virtual memory start getting moved out closer to the maximum limit of the hard drive. When you have so much data stored that you have less than 10% of the drive's capacity left, Windows gets downright slow because it no longer has a large enough section of the drive to use for virtual memory. Remember that the virtual memory must use contiguous sectors; your normal saving and deleting of files does not require that, instead just selecting space that isn't used.
You can remedy this by moving the data in My Documents to a new My Documents folder on your second drive, but if you do that there are some things you need to watch out for. Windows will not automatically use the My Documents folder that you make on the second drive. When you store data you will need to be sure that you have the path set correctly in your Save command. I think there is a way to get Windows to use the second drive as a default, but I'm afraid I don't know that procedure.