My Win2K machine had 2 IBM 75 GB Deskstar drives in a RAID 0 config, and one
finally bit the dust. I'll be replacing both of them with 2 WD 120 GB
drives. The IBM drives used a Promise RAID card which is installed in the
machine.

I'm going to get rid of the RAID 0, and set them up as C and D separate
drives, but individually. I've been advised that I can do this in the RAID
window via CTRL+F while the machine is booting up. I've been in that window,
and I believe I see the way to do this.

What has me a bit confused is the proper approach to format these drives.
Questions are -

1. Does the formatting get done before or after the RAID configuration is
set?

2. Is the formatting done via the RAID window? If not, where and how?

3. I've formatted new drives before, but only in cases where there was an OS
in place, and a new drive was added to a functioning system. What is the
protocol to format when there is no OS in place yet, such as my situation
noted above?

Ron Hirsch

Hi Art,

Thanks for the reply, and the links you gave me. I have a disaster recovery
floppy and CD set that came with that system (it's a Norton Ghost set). Can
I therefore just run it, and it will format the drives before putting the
image of C: back onto the system?

Ron

++++++++++++++++++++++++++


"Art LaCroix" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> 1) The formatting gets done after the RAID configuration.
> 2) The formatting is done when you install the OS.
> 3) The other drives are formatted when the OS is started and the RAID is
> configured.
> I hope I am explaining this correctly, the following WEB site should help
> you;
> http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/
> http://www.iomega.com/support/documents/11243.html
> http://www.storagereview.com/guide20...erf/raid/conf/
>
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ware-raid.html
> http://www.pssclabs.com/products/raid.asp
>
>
> Art LaCroix (MS_MVP/DTS/ClubWin)
>

Ron, if you're restoring an image, it will also restore the file
system. There is no need to preformat in that case. IOW, the file
system is an integral part of the image.

GL!

Ron Hirsch wrote:
>
> Hi Art,
>
> Thanks for the reply, and the links you gave me. I have a disaster recovery
> floppy and CD set that came with that system (it's a Norton Ghost set). Can
> I therefore just run it, and it will format the drives before putting the
> image of C: back onto the system?
>
> Ron
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> "Art LaCroix" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > 1) The formatting gets done after the RAID configuration.
> > 2) The formatting is done when you install the OS.
> > 3) The other drives are formatted when the OS is started and the RAID is
> > configured.
> > I hope I am explaining this correctly, the following WEB site should help
> > you;
> > http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/
> > http://www.iomega.com/support/documents/11243.html
> > http://www.storagereview.com/guide20...erf/raid/conf/
> >
> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ware-raid.html
> > http://www.pssclabs.com/products/raid.asp
> >
> >
> > Art LaCroix (MS_MVP/DTS/ClubWin)
> >

--
Ricardo M. Urbano
Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP