how do you properly reformat your hardrives?

[spunducky]

i have a dell 8100 and my cousin also has a new 8100 i got instructions from dell but there totally different from his yet we got all the same components. but we are almost finished building are first new supercomputers hes got a fx55 on a msi neo 2 plat 939 and i got a asus p5ad2 with a p4 3.4 lga 775. so now that we got no tech support how should we go about reformatting the hard drives? p.s. they will be raid 0 raptors but i dont think it makes a difference it reads it as 1 drive.

 

[boomerang]

Just to make sure, you are referring to the Raptors in the new rig, correct?

If that's the case, what OS are you installing?

If it's 2000 or XP, just make sure your CD drive is in the boot order. Put the disk in the drive, boot up and the install process will prompt you to both partition and format.

98 doesn't support SATA. If you're installing Linux, you're on your own.

If you're running SATA in RAID, you've got some other hurdles to jump over first.

 

[alm4rr]

http://paultaylor.topcities.co...rmat_a_hraddrive_.html

 

[spunducky]

ya the new rigs are both 35gig raptors im gonna try to run them striping raid 0. windows xp pro is the os we will be running. so just insert the disk and make sure boot sequence is set to cdrom and it will prompt me to reformat?

 

[boomerang]

If the drives are new and unused the term would be format. Your saying reformat is what made me question your first post.

Regardless, yes you will be prompted to partition the drive and you will be prompted to format.

However, you are first going to have to define your array in the RAID BIOS.

You may also have to put the array into the boot order and you may need the drivers on a floppy for the SATA controller on your motherboard. You will see a prompt early in the install process to press F6 for third party SCSI or RAID drivers.

I say may, because your board may not require one or both of these steps. Two systems, both with Raptors in RAID 0. Double the learning process as it's unlikely both boards will require the same setup.

There are many, many posts here regarding setting up RAID. I suggest you do a search and learn from them. For motherboard specific advice, I recommend the Motherboards Forum.

Good Luck and have fun!

 

[IamElectro]

Do not for get to have the raid controller drivers on a floppy disk for an XP install. To quote Boomerang the SATA raid install will take some time and probably a couple tries.

 

[spunducky]

well they were unused we didnt set the raid up right windows is on one drive its seeing 2 seperate hdd so he wants to reformat and start from scratch. the bios shows it as 1 hdd but windows dosnt see it so i think he didnt load all the drivers at f6 he said there was 2 drivers but he only picked one. and at windows prompt would u make it a primary drive or extended?

 

[boomerang]

You want primary.

Yeah, now's the time to play around to get it right.

Here's a thread where the guy was having the same issue. Where it would show up as two drives in Windows. Down near the bottom.

 

[spunducky]

thx somehow someway windows is now seeing it as 1 70gb raid 0 drive i think he tried it 5 times lol

 

[boomerang]

That sounds right if you have the smaller Raptors. If you're running the big ones, you've got problems.

 

[spunducky]

na its the 35gig x 2 everything seems ok now thx for the support!

 

[spunducky]

o if i download and install the new bios version for my mobo do i have to set the raid up again?

 

[boomerang]

I've done this numerous times with no problems. I know what you're thinking though. I was REAL nervous the first time. You should be fine.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: spunducky
o if i download and install the new bios version for my mobo do i have to set the raid up again?

No you shouldn't. The RAID BIOS is seperate from your system BIOS. If you were to update your RAID BIOS (ie go to (eg) Silicon Images Website and find an updated BIOS there it would IIRC wipe your RAID arrays away)

-Kevin