Question 320GB ex Raid 0 drive is shown as a 894GB drive and cannot partition or format

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
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1,510
As subject, I have 4 drives that were used for a RAID 0 x 4 stripe drive.

I am now using the drives and while BIOS shows this as a 329GB drive, Windows 7 utilities such as Disk Management shown as a 894GB drive even when a single drive is connected.

Disk Management comes up with an Initialize Disk panel. If I choose with MBR or GPT options this fails.
If I use MiniTool Paretition Wizard then this shows as 894GB (Bad Disk)
EaseUS show this as unallocated with no errors unless I try and I try to partition etc and a size of 894GB

I have tried 2 of the 4 drives with identical behaviour

Any ideas on how to move forward?
 

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
10
0
1,510
Many thanks for the reply.

These are removed. They are no longer part of a RAID drive. Only one is added to the new PC.

How do I 'clean' this drive? I have already tried clean in DiskPart.
 
You have to reconfigure the raid, remove drives from it and break the raid.
How to do this, depends on, how you created it.

If you used BIOS utility to create raid, then use it also to remove raid.
If you used Windows storage spaces, then use it.
If you used Disk Management, then use it to remove raid.
 

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
10
0
1,510
You have to reconfigure the raid, remove drives from it and break the raid.
How to do this, depends on, how you created it.

If you used BIOS utility to create raid, then use it also to remove raid.
If you used Windows storage spaces, then use it.
If you used Disk Management, then use it to remove raid.

So changes have been made to the disk? Why can't these be undone?
 

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
10
0
1,510
So -
you didn't create the raid and​
you don't know, how it was created.​
Correct?

Was raid controller transplanted from defunct system to new one?
If no, then what are hardware specs of defunct and new systems (motherboard)?

I created the RAID 0 using the motherboard with presumably BIOS/embedded setup. It was a very long time ago. The hard disk does say Intel RAID 0.
 

germanium

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2006
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18,565
If your RAID drives were done by an intel RAID capable chipset & you have access to an Intel based chipset motherboard install it in that along with it's mates. It will recognize the RAID setup & allow you to delete it. Then you can transfer it back to your new system. Once you do you will be able to initialize it in the storage option in the administrative tools/computer management/Storage/disk management. If you are installing windows on it it will automatically be initiated when you partition & format it for the install. It doesn't matter which Intel chipset as long as it is RAID capable though it may need to be the same or newer chipset. Newer chipsets will recognize older RAID setups done by Intel chipsets though not sure if you were to use an older chipset motherboard to do this. I have done this before with newer chipset & it works fine.
 

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
10
0
1,510
If your RAID drives were done by an intel RAID capable chipset & you have access to an Intel based chipset motherboard install it in that along with it's mates

Many thanks. I had to enable RAID in the BIOS to see the RAID setup page, otherwise [CTRL]-I had no effect and was ignored.

On [CTRL]-I after BIOS Setup I was able to see the disks in the system and was able to reset the offending disk.

Many thanks for the direction. I'm a little surprised there isn't a utility to reset the disk.
 

germanium

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Jul 8, 2006
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2 possible explanations here. He may have actually been running RAID 5 which would have required 4 drives for that size configuration or he may have partitioned the drive to not use full capacity in order to minimize slightly at least the distance the heads have to move in order to get to the end of the partition thus slightly reducing latency for such maneuvers. This is known as short stroking. This has been done frequently in servers for years.
 

Mikexx

Commendable
Jul 28, 2017
10
0
1,510
(894 / 3) * GiB = 319.98 gigabytes
2 possible explanations here. He may have actually been running RAID 5 which would have required 4 drives for that size configuration or he may have partitioned the drive to not use full capacity in order to minimize slightly at least the distance the heads have to move in order to get to the end of the partition thus slightly reducing latency for such maneuvers. This is known as short stroking. This has been done frequently in servers for years.

There is a simpler explanation.

There was originally 4 disks in a striped raid.

One disk went down and so the raid 0 was (re)made with 3 disks.

These days I have one SSD for programs and a second, larger conventional hard disk, for data. I feel there is very little benefit for RAID disks. Perhaps best go for a PCIe SSD?