Will a low level format make a dynamic Disk usable for Vista?

[Juice Box]

I have a 320gig HDD that used to be in a RAID 1 Array that I am trying to install vista on. The installation recognized the hard drive, but said it could not install it because it was a dynamic drive. I currently have a low-level format running (active@ killdisk), and was wondering if that will fix my problem, or if there is another step I need to take to "convert" this dynamic disk to a basic one that will work on Vista.


Side question, I also just bought a 500gig SATA HDD for storage (same computer), what would be the best way to format it for use in vista? Does it have the same computer management tools as XP did...which would detect unformatted Hard Drives, and let you format them for the first time while actually in Windows?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Juice Box
I have a 320gig HDD that used to be in a RAID 1 Array that I am trying to install vista on. The installation recognized the hard drive, but said it could not install it because it was a dynamic drive. I currently have a low-level format running (active@ killdisk), and was wondering if that will fix my problem, or if there is another step I need to take to "convert" this dynamic disk to a basic one that will work on Vista.

Doing a zero-wipe should remove RAID array metadata and partitioning info. So that should work.

Originally posted by: Juice Box
Side question, I also just bought a 500gig SATA HDD for storage (same computer), what would be the best way to format it for use in vista? Does it have the same computer management tools as XP did...which would detect unformatted Hard Drives, and let you format them for the first time while actually in Windows?

I've not really used Vista, but I would be very surprised if it didn't have the same sort of Disk Management tools as XP.

 

[Synomenon]

Yeah, if you zero-fill the drive it will be totally wiped. Vista does have that manage feature with the Disk Management tool. It's pretty much like the one in XP.