Clean install of Win 7: Can I keep my RAID 0?

[Tatsukun]

Hello,

My PC is set up with three physical drives, one boot drive and two drives in a RAID 0 array. My boot drive is dead, so I am replacing it and reinstalling Win 7 Ultimate on it (same as I had before).

My question is, am I going to lose everything on the RAID 0 array and have to remake it, or is there some way to save the configuration or something?

Thank you so much!

 

[Vythiel]

Hello,

My PC is set up with three physical drives, one boot drive and two drives in a RAID 0 array. My boot drive is dead, so I am replacing it and reinstalling Win 7 Ultimate on it (same as I had before).

My question is, am I going to lose everything on the RAID 0 array and have to remake it, or is there some way to save the configuration or something?

Thank you so much!

That depends on how you've setup your RAID0. If you've used the onboard chipset or add-in RAID card to configure your RAID 0 and both member disks are undamaged then it should be fine after the Windows 7 installation. However, if either of the hard drivers involved in the RAID0 array have failed then there is no way to restore the data that it had and you'll have to remake it. I've never created RAID 0 in software mode using windows before So I don't know how it will behave after a clean install.

 

[Emerald]

As long as only the System drive died the Data on your RAID0 should be fine and you should not need to reformat it.

for safety you could disconnect the RAID drives until after you have installed Windows7.

make sure everything will be connected the way it was and the RAID should come up automatically on the RAID controller

 

[Tatsukun]

Cool, thanks! It's not a huge deal for me, it's just that the RAID has all my DVDs and such on it and it'd be a pain to have to recopy them.

I like the idea of disconnecting them first, I'll try that. Thanks