Is RAID 0 present or not ?

T

tellboy

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I am looking at a PC that someone has just had delivered. It was described as having two 250 GB HDD. He has pointed out that only Drive C is present so I suspected it was a RAID 0 setup.

However two appear in the BIOS and in Windows Computer Management - Disk Management as per the attached picture i.e one drive not partioned .

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/gallery/showimage.php?i=382&c=14?

I dare not partition it in case I really screw things up.

My real question is ......How can you tell if RAID 0 is present. Nothing shows in the initial start screen. On my PC it does show briefy the words RAID 0 on each drive just before the Windows screen appears.

Any ideas folks ?
 
Open up the computer and check how many hard disks are present. Also note their size. This should be your biggest clue as to the setup.

I suspect it isn't a RAID 0 setup, because of the disk size shown.

It could very well be a RAID 1 setup though, where the second disk wouldn't show in Windows. In a RAID 1, second disk is a permanent mirror image of main disk.

When the computer boots, look for a prompt telling you what key to hit to go to the RAID setup, it will show you any setups there.

In any case, be it RAID 0 or RAID 1, you'll be ok to format the disk size shown in your pic without messing things up. It would probably be better to make those three partitions into one partition though, unless there's a very specific reason for that setup.
 
Have you checked the BIOS ... this is a Dell, init?


good luck ... ;)
 
Thanks to both.

As suggested I formatted the unallocated and now there are two 232GB Drives as C and D in My Computer

I know one of the partitions is for the Symantec Dell Restore where pressing CTRL/F11 at boot up gives you the option of going back to the as shipped condition as they do not give you a Windows XP Disk (as you said before Mucks, pennypinching DELL )
Checked the BIOS nothing there about RAID controllers. No prompt on startup so I guess it probably is not RAID. I can sell him my Acronis True Image which was no good on my PC with RAID 0

Anyway thanks at least he has the two drives working.
 
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