OS Reinstall... Data Loss

[mr_psi]

hello peeps...

i have done a search and cant seem to find the answer to my question...

i have my OS on a 30gig drive at the moment. i also have a raid 0 setup over 2 drives with 1 partition that just stores data eg. movies, music.

now i want to reinstall windows on the single 30gig drive and dont want to touch the raided drives... my question is can i just unplug the two raided drives and format the computer and replug them in and it will recognise that they are raided drives and configure itself?

i dont have the space to back that data up onto another singular drive so whats the best way to go about this?

thanks
mark

 

[mike_carton]

You have 3 disks:
1 (call it A) with OS
2 (call them B and C) in RAID 0 with data

You want to reinstall OS on A.

If that's the situation, I don't see a need to disconnect the RAID drives. You also don't need to separately format A; Windows install will offer to do it for you.

 

[nukemaster]

Just install on the 30.....when windows is installed and you put back on your raid drives....bang....all your data should be back.....

After all without the raid drivers(unless it some kind of driverless raid like Asus easy backup raid.....even then,as long as you install on the 30 it will not mess with anything else....) windows will not even see the drives.....so its can't mess them up

 

[mr_psi]

so do i have to press f6 at startup to load the drivers?

 

[GuyAmI]

Since you'll be doing the install on the 30GB and not even touching the RAID then no, it'll be a straightforward install of Windows without needing to load any drivers.

And just like nukemaster said, once you're in Windows, without drivers then you can't even see the array so it can't be messed up.

But once you've got Windows set the way you want it then you can reinstall your RAID drivers and get your array back.