When I re-ordered my FX530 the other day to get the Quad processor, it
now comes with 500gb as RAID-0. I don't like that losing one drive
will kill all the data on both, and I don't want RAID-1 and lose half
the capacity. Also, all the benchmark testing I've seen shows little
to no performance boost with RAID-0 on a 2 drive desktop system but
does put you at complete data loss if the RAID gets corrupt or a drive
fails.
So "whenever" I get my new computer right out of the box I want to
delete the RAID array and disable it in BIOS so it doesn't waste time
looking for drive arrays on boot-up. I know how to do that.
I'm just wondering if the Gateway restore CD is what I should use (I
don't want it to re-create the RAID) or if it comes with a separate
Windows Vista CD that I can boot to do a fresh install with on the
primary hard drive?
Then I can format a partition on the second hard drive once in
Windows. I can use the second drive to backup data files as needed
without taking up the whole drive as in RAID-1 mirroring. I plan on
getting an external hard drive for full backups by Christmas anyway.
Well I emailed Gateway support and got this reply which answers my
question:
If you wish to delete the RAID 0 configuration of the hard drive, you
can use the Windows Vista Operating System Disc to reformat the hard
drive and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows Vista. Please backup your
files first before reloading the operating system. Also, I recommend
that you create the system recovery for the applications and drivers
external
media using the Gateway recovery center first before formatting the
hard drive. Please refer on the instructions found on the link below:
Removing RAID-0 on new FX530 
Linear Mode
