Former RAID Hard Drive Not Recognized

[ccaruso]

Hello.

I have WD Black 640G hard drives (SATA 3 Gb/s) that were previously used in a RAID setup. I would like to re-purpose one drive for a Windows 7 boot drive. I am using the same Gigabyte P55-UD4P motherboard where the RAID was installed. The BIOS is no longer set to RAID.

However, not one of the RAID drives are recognized by the Windows 7 installation process in this computer. They are recognized in other computers as a secondary or tertiary drives. I was able to do a quick format as well as copy and write to these drives on these other computers.

Is there a 'reconversion' step I missed (RAID to single-use) or do they require some low-level format wizardry? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Connie

 

[kittle]

If you want to install a new copy of windows onto the new drive you will need to reformat it first. I forget the exact steps (its been a long time since I installed win7), but the installation CD will have an option "somewhere" to delete the current partition and then let you reformat the drive.

If that still doesnt work, plug the drive into one of the other computers that recognizes it and reformat from there.

 

[ccaruso]

If you want to install a new copy of windows onto the new drive you will need to reformat it first. I forget the exact steps (its been a long time since I installed win7), but the installation CD will have an option "somewhere" to delete the current partition and then let you reformat the drive.

If that still doesnt work, plug the drive into one of the other computers that recognizes it and reformat from there.

As stated in the original post, the drive(s) are NOT recognized by the installer and can not be reformatted, partitions deleted or even selected. The drive is not available using any mass storage driver. Also as stated previously... They are recognized in other computers as a secondary or tertiary drives. I was able to do a quick format as well as copy and write to these drives on these other computers... But the still not recognized when putting the drive back in computer for Win 7 installation.

Thank you for your attempt. It is appreciated.

 

[kittle]

As stated in the original post, the drive(s) are NOT recognized by the installer and can not be reformatted, partitions deleted or even selected. The drive is not available using any mass storage driver. Also as stated previously... They are recognized in other computers as a secondary or tertiary drives. I was able to do a quick format as well as copy and write to these drives on these other computers... But the still not recognized when putting the drive back in computer for Win 7 installation.
Thank you for your attempt. It is appreciated.

Sorry - i missed the "quick format" part of your original post.

so if they are recognized on other PCs and not on new one, this tells me the drives are working, but the gigabyte board cant talk to the drive for some reason. Check the cables and see if its plugged into a 'raid-only' slot or something like that.
Im assuming the drive does show up in the gigabyte bios?

Also, if you disconnect all other drives from your pc - What happens?

 

[ccaruso]

Thanks again.

I found the answer here...

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2047723/raid-drive-win-install.html