Undo Raid 0

[dalemindy]

I have a Gateway Fx510x with Windows Xp Professional Service Pack 3 with two 250 gig hitachi hard drives in Raid 0. I have less than 200 gigs of used space.

I want to take it out of raid 0 into two separate disks C: D:

I have backed up my entire system including data using Acronis Backup and Restore Workstation v9 onto an external harddrive via USB connection.

What is the easiest way to do this?
I am really a dummy so I need step by step Please.... Thanks

 

[dalemindy]

This is also from MindyDale.

The reason I want to break my Raid 0

1. In the pass 2 weeks. Not in order. My mouse was connected to my monitor. It stopped working. I unpluged it and connected it to the usb on the cpu and it worked. My keyboard was connected to the monitor and it stopped working I connected it to the cpu via usb and it started working. My mouse has returned to the monitor for several days and continues to work. I just reconnected my keyboard to the monitor and it works

I turn off my computer nightly. several times last week it just refused to shut down. I have turned it off with the off button about 3 times.

A couple of mornings when I turned it on nothing happened but a black screen until I turned it on and off with the off button a couple of times. Then it booted normal.

A couple of mornings it came up with a black screen asking if I wanted to start it normally. ( I do not remember if it was the following mornings after having to manually shut it down ) I tried hitting the enter key but there was no response from the enter key so I just waited until it timed out. It did start up normally.

Does this seem like a hard drive problem? or a Main board problem or just computer fairies.

Anyway I figure something is wrong and when something is wrong it usually does not correct itself. So I thought it easier to get rid of the raid 0.

Plus I have a lot of data running off of my external hard drive and thought it would be better to say get 2 new 500 gig internal drives.

Raid 0 is a big unknown to me. If one of my hard drives is bad and I have more than 250 gig of stuff ( I have two 250 gig hard drives) won't I lose it all?

I really feel lost on this........

 

[dalemindy]

This is MindyDale again.

So I really want to take out my two 250 gigs drives and replace them with two 500 gig drives. If I just take out the ones in there now can I just clone my backup onto a new 500 gig drive and it work?

If I can't can you give me specific instructions on how to do it? Again I am slow......

I know I know I am asking a couple of different questions but I really want to know my alternatives....

Many thanks to all that take time to read all of this

 

[BadBigBen]

Without knowing what mainboard you are using (Gateways are not very well known in Europe), or what RAID card is in use, I can only give generic instructions at best...

this is how I would continue:

1. install the 500 GB HDD, physically into the PC
2. power up and boot with the Acronis CD...
3. migrate (clone) the RAID 0 to the new 500GB HDD.
4. when done, remove Acronis CD and power down, unhook the two 250GB HDDs (remembering which cable attached to which drive, mark one or both with tape or a permanent marker)...
5. power on and see if the 500GB boots all the way into Windows (check BIOS for correct BOOT ORDER)... if it does, then fine (goto Step 6)... if it doesn't then something is amiss with the cloning and here I would try another way (software or other menu point under Acronis) (back to Step 3)...
6. power down, unhook the 500 GB hook up the two 250GB, power on the PC, enter BIOS (or RAID BIOS) then break the RAID 0... power back down, remove the two 250GB HDDs or leave them in the PC as extra storage...
7. hook up the 500GB HDD, power on the system... all done... (if you opted to keep the two 250GB HDDs in the setup, make sure that you format them in the Drive Management app under Windows)...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[RegisMencer]

Hello Dale:

Thanks for your question.

When your computer asks if you want to start it normally, it is asking this because there was no clean shut down the last time you attempted to switch your computer off.

Your computer is refusing to shut down for one of several reasons:

1. You have a peripheral attached to your computer which is not allowing it to shut down gracefully or

2. You do indeed have a hard drive issue or.

3. The motherboard/power supply is on its way out.

To find out which one of the above it is:

For 1.

Remove all your peripherals except for your mouse, keyboard and monitor and see if it boots up and shuts down normally. If it does, add a peripheral, one by one until you have the boot up and boot down problem again. The last peripheral you added is your culprit.

For 2.

Go to Start>Right Click on My Computer>Manage>Event Viewer>System and you will see events categorized by type, date, time, source etc. You are looking for "error" with a red cross under type and "disk" under source. When you double click on this event, it will give you details as to which hard drive the event is referring to. If you do have a bad hard drive(s), this event will show up especially at the time you boot up.

For 3.

There is no real way to diagnose this. The fact that your USB ports are intermittently working can be a sign that your motherboard is on its way out or that your power supply is no longer supplying sufficient or stable power to the computer.

I hope this helps.

All the best,

Regis