Windows 7 not starting - 1 out of 2 HDD is broken (RAID)

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toppercharley

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Nov 24, 2013
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Hi everyone.

I have a problem starting windows 7 on my MSI GT780R laptop. Recently I replaced 1 of the RAM sticks because it was broken. After that everything went well and I could work on my laptop fine.
But now (a couple of weeks later) windows 7 doesn't start anymore because 1 of the HDD is broken. It is a RAID system so I'm not sure how to proceed from here. Any Ideas? This is what I see when I start my laptop:

edit

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photo1

photo2

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Valentin_N

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Mar 24, 2013
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you will need to disable the RAID (you surely have a RAID 0 configuration which is bad and if one of the disks goes to hell then everything is lost as half of the info is on the second harddisk the very reason why you get performance boost). after disabling the RAID configuration you can install windows once again.
 
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crisan_tiberiu

crisan_tiberiu

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Nov 22, 2010
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Well, if you RAID failed due to a faulty HDD then your solutions are limited:
1. if you have sensitive data and you need a recovery you need to send the RAID (both HDDs) to professionals (see Tom's article about Seagate professional recovery)
2. if you dont need to recover the data, then go to BIOS and set your SATA mode to AHCI and reinstall Windows... on the HDD that still works (if you want a new RAID, then you will have to buy a second HDD and remake the RAID).
 
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jwk3

jwk3

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Feb 29, 2012
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as it is set up in RAID0 it will have no redundancy/hard drive failure protection. it combines 2 hard drives to give you (theoretically) twice the performance, but if one dies then the logical drive made out of the 2 physical drives will die. it's like taking an axe and chopping a (virtual) hard drive directly in half.

I hope you have made a backup of both your personal documents and the OS. If you haven't got any recovery disks for reinstalling your OS you can request these from MSI, although they will most probably charge for this. as for personal documents, let's hope you've got a backup solution in place!
 
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toppercharley

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Nov 24, 2013
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Thanks for the quick replies guys. Most of my files are backed up and i have a recovery usb with windows 7 ready to go. So I guess im just gonna install a new windows.

There is also a configuration utility when i start up my computer:

configuration utility

Anything I should do with this...or should i just go to bios and set my SATA mode to AHCI?

When I'm going to install windows again...How do I know on which drive to install? How do I know which one is broken? Or will it say that in the menu?

Thanks Guys!
 
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jwk3

jwk3

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Feb 29, 2012
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I'd physically remove the dead drive from the laptop all it's going to do is add weight and use power from the battery for nothing. you can see which port it's plugged into in the photo you've sent us so find out which bay port 1 is (look in manufacturer documentation or maybe the physical trays/bays in the laptop are labelled.)
 
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Valentin_N

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change the msata to ahcie and when you go to the bios make sure the usb is inserted and when you go to boot priority then USB-HDD should be displayed or something similar. if you know how to select boot device when the computer is getting started then select USB (if there are more options then select USB HDD)
 
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toppercharley

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Nov 24, 2013
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I removed the broken hdd and set the sata to ahci mode. Now when im booting from usb and trying to install windows 7. It says no drives were found.

screenshot

Think i have to load a driver. Any idea where i can find that driver? Ive been looking on western digital website but I am not sure what to download. Thanks

 
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