RAID0 to no RAID

[Micropat]

Hi all,

I have Win 7 64bit installed on my pc (specs below). The HDD is a 2 X 1TB RAID0 (2 TB in effect) but I want to use one of the member disks for something else. The raid is a fake raid made with Intel matrix storage manager. I defragmented and consolidated free space with defrag.exe. Using the built in windows partition editing tool I shrank my win 7 partition to less than the size of a 1 TB HDD (886.61 GB to be exact). Of course I have that 100 MB partition that windows uses for booting and what not. I then made a system image using the windows back up center to an external HDD. Then I broke my raid array in the intel matrix storage manager and set the disks to AHCI mode (from raid mode) in the bios. Upon attempting to restore the backup image (by booting from win7 dvd) I got a message telling me that I need a bigger disk (I forget the exact message). The space available on my disks is about 931 GB after formating and the size of the two partitions in the system image is 886.62 GB. Of course, resetting the raid0 array allows me to restore the system image and post here. Does anyone know why a single disk is too small when the actual numbers say otherwise? Does anyone have a solution? If I bought an actual 2 TB HDD could I restore to it? (My problem is actuall linux boot loader grub 2 compatability with fake raid but I have no linux on the system as yet). I feel this is a rather unusual situation because when I go on google everyone else is trying to get help going from a single disk to a raid array to improve performance or security.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Pat

Mobo: Asus P7P55D-E Evo
Proc: Core i7 860 stock settings
RAM: 4X 2GB Cosair 1333 MHz
HDD: WD Cavair black (2 x 1TB RAID0)
Gfx: Gainward 9800 GT (ya I know, I'm gonna upgrade, ok)
Power: Cosair HX850W

 

[MRFS]

> I then made a system image using the windows back up center to an external HDD.

Sounds like a bug in the Windows Backup Center.

Try Symantec's GHOST: if the size of C: from your RAID 0
is less than the formatted size of a non-RAID HDD,
GHOST should have no problem restoring one of its
drive images to your non-RAID HDD with 931 GB formatted.

Alternatively, try downloading and installing PartitionWizard:

http://www.partitionwizard.com/

Shrink your C: to something in the neighborhood of 50 GB
so that it will be "short-stroked".

Then do a drive image with GHOST to your external HDD.

You know the rest.


p.s. As a precaution, you might also launch the Intel Option ROM
to initialize both HDDs as non-RAID (JBOD) before restoring the
drive image of C: to either one. Intel strongly recommends
initializing all HDDs on the ICHxR controller, so they are "RAID Ready".

"RAID mode" in the BIOS is a superset of AHCI.


MRFS

 

[Micropat]

Best answer selected by Micropat.