Reformatting HDD in RAID

Oct 20, 2005
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44
91
Hey all,

I've currently got 2x 500GB HDDs in RAID0. I want to reformat my HDDs back to just regular non-RAID.

How would I go about doing that? I've formatted HDDs in non-RAID format many times, but this is the first time I'm in RAID and want to go back to standard.

I've already got all my data backed up on an external 1 TB drive, so do I just plug the HDD's back into the non-RAID sata ports, disable RAID in my BIOS, and pop in my Win XP CD?

Thanks!
 

postmortemIA

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2006
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first remove partitions, or it will be mess, some partitions (but not data) will be still recognized after separation.
or you can remove all partitions with XP CD once you have two drives.
 
Oct 20, 2005
10,978
44
91
Originally posted by: postmortemIA
first remove partitions, or it will be mess, some partitions (but not data) will be still recognized after separation.
or you can remove all partitions with XP CD once you have two drives.

So, do I leave my HDDs in the raid bus first and then pop in the win xp CD to remove partitions?

If yes, then after that, what do I do next? Plug the HDDs back into the regular non-RAID bus and format from XP CD?

Thanks.
 

Billb2

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2005
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Originally posted by: Schfifty Five
So, do I leave my HDDs in the raid bus first and then pop in the win xp CD to remove partitions?

If yes, then after that, what do I do next? Plug the HDDs back into the regular non-RAID bus and format from XP CD?
To be assured of success:
Remove all partitions from the array and reformat it.
Break the array.
FDisk each drive.
Format each drive
Run fixmbr and fixboot on both drivers.
That pretty much puts them back to where they were when they left the factory.