Help with formatting old RAID drives.

  • Thread starter Thread starter kilowatt
  • Start date Start date
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kilowatt

I have two identical WD160G that were formatted as RAID.

I have installed the drives in a machine that has no RAID. When I
booted the machine (98) it reported only one drive and the volume label
had corrupt text.

I formatted the drive and rebooted. It showed the drive listed as
250G! This was the size of the two drives when they were connected
RAID. I know that this cannot be but it was. I even copied some test
files to the drive and it seemed to read/write fine. I did not trust
this setup. I installed partition Magic.

I have deleted all partitions and as it stands now PM says the first
drive's size is unallocated but it is 260,000 M

The second drive is unallocated but reports its size as 131,000 M

I am sure that because the drives had been formatted as RAID is why
this is happening but I don't know how to fix it. I would never
trust any data on a 160G drive that reports 260G.
 
I have two identical WD160G that were formatted as RAID.

I have installed the drives in a machine that has no RAID. When I
booted the machine (98) it reported only one drive and the volume
label had corrupt text.

I formatted the drive and rebooted. It showed the drive listed as
250G! This was the size of the two drives when they were connected
RAID. I know that this cannot be but it was. I even copied some test
files to the drive and it seemed to read/write fine. I did not trust
this setup. I installed partition Magic.

I have deleted all partitions and as it stands now PM says the first
drive's size is unallocated but it is 260,000 M

The second drive is unallocated but reports its size as 131,000 M

I am sure that because the drives had been formatted as RAID is why
this is happening but I don't know how to fix it. I would never
trust any data on a 160G drive that reports 260G.
Click to expand...

Wipe both drives with something like clearhdd from
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm
and start again from scratch, partition and format them.

That will get rid of everything on both drives
and they will show up as their real sized again.
 
I see that the utility you recommend is for DOS. When I see
instructions such as:

2. Running the program
Enter "CLEARHDD 0 or 1" on the A:\ prompt. (Clearhdd 0 for Master,
Clearhdd 1 for Slave)
If error is detected in the HDD, the following screen will be
displayed. (Error is detected in
HDD)

I would be unsure what command to enter.

My boot drive is c: and it is a master

The next 2 drives are the old RAID drives. One is master and the other
is slave.
 
(e-mail address removed) wrote
I see that the utility you recommend is for DOS.
When I see instructions such as:
Click to expand...
2. Running the program
Enter "CLEARHDD 0 or 1" on the A:\ prompt.
(Clearhdd 0 for Master, Clearhdd 1 for Slave)
If error is detected in the HDD, the
following screen will be displayed.
(Error is detected in HDD)
Click to expand...
I would be unsure what command to enter.
Click to expand...
My boot drive is c: and it is a master
Click to expand...

Safest to physically disconnect this
drive, then you cant accidentally wipe it.
The next 2 drives are the old RAID drives.
One is master and the other is slave.
Click to expand...

The you need two separate commands,
Clearhdd 0
Clearhdd 1
to wipe both drives.
 
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