How to disable RAID

Thanks for the help. That sorted me out.

why would you want to disable your RAID? It's faster! If you're worried about data, buy an external drive to backup to.

When one drive packs up I lose my data. I want to use drive C: for my Operating System and drive D: for all my stuff PLUS an image of drive C: so it takes minutes to restore WinXP when it gets unstable, which it does from time to time. That way I do not have to re-install any of my applications because I do not have to re-format, ever. This system works very well on my other computer. I am not really after the speed so much as security.

My 160 SATA

Johanpp said:

When one drive packs up I lose my data. I want to use drive C: for my Operating System and drive D: for all my stuff PLUS an image of drive C: so it takes minutes to restore WinXP when it gets unstable, which it does from time to time. That way I do not have to re-install any of my applications because I do not have to re-format, ever. This system works very well on my other computer. I am not really after the speed so much as security.

Click to expand...

I'm only useing 1 SATA drive,partioned in 3 parts.
C is my OS,D is my Music and E is pictures,movies and misc data.
I just reinstalled XP to C.First i copied things like Favorites,My Documents
and many others to D to move back to C:
Whats wrong with that system ? Drive D can be on the same drive as C.
Besides you might buy another SATA device for connection 2.
SATA DVD'S are available i think.

BTW i just realized it was a Dell,The worst PC on the Planet.

The worst PC, now you tell me

Well they are both Dells and my main computer now works fine after replacing the motherboard once and the sound card twice.

I have been using Dell for years and I must admit they have a lot of initial problems, but Dell sorts it out real snappy.

As for re-installing the OS, I can't do that. I have Microsoft programs which install a trillion thihgs in the registry. I also have many other programs that do the same need to be re-installed after Windows is re-installed. It takes me two full days to re-install everything and tweak and what have you and then in the days to follow discover stuff which is still missing.

I use Acronis (is advertising allowed?) to do the image backup. It takes about 8 minutes with no intervention from me to put XP back in its place like after the original format. I of course install ALL my software and tweaks etc and then do the final image backup. So when I recover, it knows where my stuff is. I have a drive C:, D:, E:, F:, G:, and H:, all between 180Gb to the last one 500 GB. (So on this machine RAID will cost) Drive C:, D:, E: are partitions all on logical 0 and C: is only 15GB which is enough for XP. All my applications and data reside on D:, the rest are photos, home movies and backups. I do not store any documents or photos in the far away hidden Folder Microsft forces one, I use no additional space on drive C: exept for Favorites which of course I have to copy when I "reformat". I do not use Outlook either.

I have even wiped my drive C:, installed Vista, did not like it and in 8 minutes I was back in business.

This works well for me and if you do not do it like that you should try it. No more formatting of the OS, heaven.

zipperman said:

I'm only useing 1 SATA drive,partioned in 3 parts.
C is my OS,D is my Music and E is pictures,movies and misc data.
I just reinstalled XP to C.First i copied things like Favorites,My Documents
and many others to D to move back to C:
Whats wrong with that system ? Drive D can be on the same drive as C.
Besides you might buy another SATA device for connection 2.
SATA DVD'S are available i think.

Click to expand...

I just looked at your post again. If you count you will find I have too many drives. Well, the Dell has 4 Ide connections, two of which go to the DVD's. Then I use one Sata connection for te 500GB and I have an additional Promise card installed which gives me large drive capability for two more drives. I have one SATA connection spare. So as I am a hard drive junky I will have to see to that.

I guess i'm not answering you post

Theres nowhere i see a count of how many drives you have.
I have two IDE's.I use 1 only,Master is DVD Burner,Slave is DVD-Rom.
Re too many,You don't need a Promise Card.
? Too many connections or too many drives.
So I'll unsubscribe after next reply as i can't answer your Topic Title.
:wave:

zipperman said:

Theres nowhere i see a count of how many drives you have.
I have two IDE's.I use 1 only,Master is DVD Burner,Slave is DVD-Rom.
Re too many,You don't need a Promise Card.
? Too many connections or too many drives.
So I'll unsubscribe after next reply as i can't answer your Topic Title.
:wave:

Click to expand...

Yes, we have drifted off my original post asking advice about how to get rid of the RAID arrangement so I can use the two physical drives independantly.
To answer your queery; too many drives if you count the drive letters I mentioned. Unless you partition you can't really have drive letters going all the way to H; (actually I:, my mistake) with only 4 IDE connections and I have two DVD's not included in the drive letters mentioned. That was the reason I mentioned that I have the extra promise card installed and I occupy both connections on it. I have 7 physical drives installed including the DVD's.

Johanpp said:

When one drive packs up I lose my data. I want to use drive C: for my Operating System and drive D: for all my stuff PLUS an image of drive C: so it takes minutes to restore WinXP when it gets unstable, which it does from time to time. That way I do not have to re-install any of my applications because I do not have to re-format, ever. This system works very well on my other computer. I am not really after the speed so much as security.

Click to expand...

like I said, use a third device for backups.