Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > Other Components > Formatting HD's for RAID setup
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Agua   03-06-2002 at 03:10:39 AM

Hi!,
New to the forum here. Hope someone here can help me. I'm getting an Abit TH7IIR board (P4 850 with RAID). What I'm wondering is before I setup the board for RAID utilization, do I need to format both HD's and install my OS (Win Me) on both HD's?
Thanks in Advance

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camieabz   03-06-2002 at 08:52:33 PM
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Format both first.

Create the array.

Install operating system.



<b><font color=red> :mad: DELETE THE "EVERYTHING'S GONE QUIET" THREAD!!! :mad: </font color=red></b>

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Agua   03-07-2002 at 03:16:16 AM
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Thanks! That makes sense.

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l3um   03-08-2002 at 05:07:57 AM
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I don't get it, how do you format the drive before you install the operating system? (I'm kinda new)

What's this?...ERROR ERROR ERROR...*CRASH & BURN*

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camieabz   03-08-2002 at 06:07:02 AM
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Nowadays drives come pre-formatted (its good practice to format a new drive anyway).

Years ago they didn't so when you got it, you formatted it.

Formatting cleans or deletes all the data on the disk except for the boot sector, which hold the file formats stuff (FAT 32 etc).

When you start your system with a boot disk the boot disk installs enough DOS commands to be able to get things going. Remember, DOS = Disk <b>Operating System</b>.

Examples are:

Fdisk.exe
Format.exe
Scandisk.exe
MsDos.sys
Command.com

There are many files on a typical bootdisk. Some are boot managing files, some are diag tools. Some contain standard drivers for keyboard/mouse/CD drives etc.

When you boot this way DOS will create a Ramdrive (virtual drive in memory) to allow these files to work. This lets you set-up your HDD or install 3rd party CD drivers or whatever.

Once the HDD is formatted, you re-boot with CD-ROM support or similar and install Windows from your CD-ROM.

<b><font color=red> :mad: DELETE THE "EVERYTHING'S GONE QUIET" THREAD!!! :mad: </font color=red></b>

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BGates2B   03-08-2002 at 04:58:07 PM
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Format first??? Not sure how'd you do that unless you're setting up a RAID1. If you're doing a RAID 0 for performance, it wouldn't work

Here's what I do on my RAID 0 setups. If there is data on a harddrive, I will FDISK it to delete the partition(s). The partitions usually are deleted when setting up the RAID but I like to make sure.

Set up your drives and then go into the RAID bios setup (CTRL-H on Highpoint, CTRL-F of Promise). Go ahead and define your RAID. If using Windows 9x, you won't have to load the driver during setup, the system will see the RAID. If you're using NT,W2K, or XP, then you will need to load the RAID driver during setup by using F6.

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AMD = Chevy
Friends don't let friends drive Fords

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