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Return Hdd's back to a Factory state

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Phoenix56317

Junior Member
Forgive me for seeking an answer to this question that may have already been answered here but I am not sure how to formulate it any better to explain my problem.

I have a number of Hdd's that are non-functioning and I would like to know what I need to do to get them back up and functioning. They are not physically damaged unless you count on an an end user changing the geometry through using software.

I've had 2 hd's in a RAID0 setup and instead of reverting them back to Non-Raid by using the BIOS Intel raid setup program, I just took them out just in case my upgrade didn't go as planed.

Essentially, what I did was disconnected the 2 HD's that were in raid0 and replaced them with 2 other hd's WITHOUT going through the REVERTING motion.

So, my question is...HOW does one go about getting these hd's back to factory configuration so that they are usable once again ?

Do I need to do a Low level format or something else here?

Thanks in advance.
 
If it were as simple as that, I would have already done it and not come here and seek advice, Thanks.

Can anyone tell me if the Intel RAID program that the BIOS uses to create RAIDS in the first place ...changes anything on the HD to make them not work when you take them out and reformat them ?

I say it does but am willing to let others tell me otherwise.
 
usually you would use the companies low level format tool for that drive if its seriously messed up.

Honestly i think you can just format them and they should work just fine, i'm fairly certain i did that before years ago without disabling raid first. I don't think raid does much to the drives, i think it just makes the hardware be seen as one drive..but don't quote me on that. aside from changing the cluster size that is.
 
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Google "DBAN". RAID writes some metadata to the drives, which, if re-inserted back into a compatible system, will lead the BIOS to think that they are still RAID drives.

If you secure-erase or DBAN the entire drive (including HPA), then the drive should be "clean" and able to be used as a non-RAID drive again.
 
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