Does Reformating remove Raid software and fix hard drives

[VCS]

Hi All,

I am new to this Raid Technology ,I am know guessing it is for hard drives.

I have the p4 3gig Intel with a 865perlk motherboard.

I also have 2 hard drives:
1) 40g Samsung 7200rpm Partitioned into two areas of 22g and 12g.
2) 10g Maxator 7200rpm for storage

Not knowing what I am doing, I enabled my Raid technology in the Bios and installed the software from the Motherboard cd. That is all I did.

Again not knowing what I am doing, I thought I could uninstall the software and disable the Raid Technology in the Bios to reverse everything. Well I could disable the Raid Technology in the Bios, but I have to go through some proccess acording to the instuctions that would pop up when I tried to uninstall the Raid software. The pop up window said this:

Your current configuration is using this software to manage the Raid Controller on your system and cannot be uninstalled. However you may select to uninstall the non-critical components of this software(userinterface, start menus,links ect...)by clicking OK. CLICK CANCEL TO CANCEL THIS OPERATION AND VIEW A PROCEDURE ON HOW TO REMOVE YOUR RAID CONFIGURATION MANUALLY.


The manual steps below:


To manually remove all Intel RAID software from your system,
print these instructions and then complete the following
steps:

IMPORTANT NOTE: All the data on the RAID-controlled hard
drive(s) will be DELETED and will not be accessible after
completing these steps. Backup all important data before
proceeding.

1. Reboot the system
2. Depending on your system configuration, complete one of
the following set of tasks:

If System has Intel(R) RAID Option ROM Installed:

2a. Enter the Intel RAID Option ROM Setup by pressing
the 'Ctrl' and 'i' (CTRL + I) keys at the
appropriate time during boot-up. (Note: If your
system does not appear to have Intel RAID Option ROM
installed, skip to step '2d' below)
2b. Once you have entered the Intel RAID Option ROM
Setup, select menu option #3 to 'Reset disks to
non-RAID'.
2c. Exit the Intel Option ROM Setup

-or-

If System Does Not Have Intel RAID Option ROM Installed:

2d. Enter the system BIOS Setup (usually done by
pressing a key such as 'F2' or 'Delete' during
boot-up)
2e. Change the IDE configuration for the RAID-controlled
hard drive(s) from 'RAID' to 'IDE'.

3. Delete any partitions on the hard drives that were
previously connected to the RAID controller
4. Reinstall the operating system

Note: If you experience any difficulties making these
changes to the system BIOS, please contact the
motherboard manufacturer or place of purchase for
assistance.


----------------------

If I reformat my machine, I am assuming all the software will not be there for the Raid , But are my hard drives going to be ok for another install of windows and all software. The options in the Bios are enable and disable Raid Technology(now disabled).

In the manual instructions they talk about this: If System has Intel(R) RAID Option ROM Installed,then do this

OR

If System Does Not Have Intel RAID Option ROM Installed:then do this

Which setup would I have? and Do I have to Change the IDE configuration for the RAID-controlled hard drive(s) from 'RAID' to 'IDE'.

So far the machine is running just fine, but I am not sure what I may have changed for my hardrives. I will edit this post and see what information they have in the BIOS on my hard drives.


Thanks a bunch for any help, I am not sure if I messed up my machine. I just want to reformat and everything will be back to normal. Or do I want this Raid Technology for my hard drives? One thing to note When I reformat my machine I usually leave the 10g Maxator along because it has all my stored data. Are these manual steps going to remove this data as well as the data on the Samsung 40 gig.Or can I just reformat the 40g to clear things up.

If some can shed some light on what I have done and where do I stand now, I would appreciate it very much.

Vincent

[miguel]

Hi, did you define the RAID (stripe or mirror in RAID setup menu (CTRL+I )?
Did you, made a floppy with INTEL RAID ICH5 driver, and installed when W XP or W2000 installation began (F6)?
If donīt, I donīt think you have a RAID installed.

[VCS]

Hi Miguel,
Thanks for the reply

-------------------------------
"did you define the RAID (stripe or mirror in RAID setup menu (CTRL+I )? "

I never assigned anything regarding stripe or mirror in RAID setup menu.

-------------------------------
-------------------------------

"Did you, made a floppy with INTEL RAID ICH5 driver, and installed when W XP or W2000 installation began (F6)?"

I also never did this.
-----------------------------------


It looks like I have everything in place to go further with the Raid setup. I just never went through the rest of the setup.

Why do I get the message that I cannot uninstall the main software because my current configuration is using the software to manage the contoller on my system, but just some non-critical components can be uninstalled. I will take a shot at this: Because I enabled it in the Bios and installed the software and they are partially talking to each other. Reformating will cure this.


Do I want to enable the Raid setup, any benifiets to this? As you can see I am new at this and just learning, but it is kinda fun and scary at the same time, you just never know what you are going to mess up next.


Thanks again,

Vincent

[miguel]

Hi, Vincent.
Are your HD SATA?
If donīt, forget RAID, your mobo only supports SATA RAID.
If the HD are SATA, the situation is more complex due to the size of both HD, but first, let me know it.
Regards.