Re-Format For the Lose

ScottALot

ScottALot

Active Member
Well I took the mature decision to reserve some hours in the day to re-format my hard drive(s).

Before I start, I'm going to tell you what my hard drives are like.
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Hardware-Wise, I have:
2x 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black Drives
1x 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black Drive
1x 60GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD

Now the roles in the hard drives would optimally be, but aren't:
SSD: Operating System (Win 7 Ultimate) and some frequently used programs
RAID 0 of 500GB HDDs: Programs and light media (music, pictures, programs)
1TB: Partly a back-up, and partly heavy media (videos, documents en masse)

Before I started, the drives were like this:One of the 500GB HDDs: OS and programs
Other 500GB: Nothing
1TB: Old software (another Win7 OS and junk)
SSD: Nothing
So essentially, a gross-nasty JBOD.

After re-formatting and having many problems and strange fixes:
SSD: Says it has at least one OS on it, I hope it's the Win7 Ultimate (and I hope it's actually the SSD)
2x500GB: Formatted, ready for transformation into RAID 0.
1TB: Inaccessible, asks me to format it :eek: :angry: :gun:

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So when I attempt to change boot priority and boot into the SSD, it gives me an error characteristic of *drumroll* Windows XP.

"NTLDR is missing. Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

So knowing that I have an old OS on the 1TB, I boot to it. To my surprise, it grants me the ability to Dual Boot :eek: to either Win 7 HomePremium or Win 7 Ultimate. I am almost 100% certain I put the Win 7 Ultimate on the SSD, so this confuses me! Booting into the Win 7 Ultimate [the first time] is like booting into a brand new System Builders OS with the resolution set crazy low and one or two updates causing you to restart.

However, something's up here:
Untitled-1.png


1. Those System Reserved/Resource Partition things didn't show up before the re-format. I understand that they're actual partitions and they should exist, but they weren't visible before.

2. SSD has Windows symbol next to it. This seems mostly promising as it means SOME OS got on to the SSD. Not sure how to check if it's the Win 7 Ultimate... and I'm also not sure how to make 100% sure that it really is the SSD and not something I mis-labeled a year ago.

3. The Big Ol WTF - What's up with Local Disk (G:/)? I've eliminated the other choices, so it's got to be my backup *gasp*. But I can't access it and attempts to access it result in requests to format the drive (NO F***ING WAY). As we speak I'm prepping a recovery method called GParted which is installed onto a media device via TuxBoot (so it's Linux-based).

So! What should I do? I could

1.
---a.Set up the RAID between the 500GBs
---b.Recover via GParted
---c.Recover to the RAID
---d.Reformat the 1TB Backup
---e.Migrate the data back to the backup
---:D
2.
---a.Don't think about RAID yet
---b.Recover via GParted
---c.Recover to a 500GB
---d.Reformat the 1TB Backup
---e.Migrate the data back to the backup
---:D
3.
???
 
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Well I loaded up the GPartEd software and it claims to have recovered the disk. I have to borrow a friend's external drive to back up that data, though, before I continue... as the GPartEd software only recognizes the 1TB so I can't migrate that data to another internal.

If that works, I'll continue to do this:

-Migrate data to external
-Format 1TB
-Migrate back to 1TB
-Set up RAID
-All should be smooth again

I'll have to do something about the SSD though, I think I set that up wrong. Voyagerfan informed me on that.
 
Can you post a screenshot of Disk Manager?

It'll give viewers more of an idea how windows has been installed across the disks :)

You mentioned that you should be able to boot from the SSD, but for some reason aren't able to, I reckon this is most likely because something strange is going on with how Windows has assigned certain parts of the OS to different partitions.

I've had this problem before, and the first time I came across it, I wanted to throw my PC out the window :P
 
For the ssd you can use Diskpart to see if it has any volume/partition but at this point with the other drives and data being/getting situated, could take the guesswork out and just clean the flash cells.

Latest BIOS if needed, latest ACHI driver. Don't know if it's AMD or not by they have an ACHI driver now and may/maynotbe better/faster than MS's.
Check to see if there's a FW update you want and if so, thier method will clean it as well. If no wanted update can use Diskpart to delete partions and run a 'clean all' command.
Then your all set for 7 the easy way ie just map your storage/public/whateveryouwant folders to hdd and if there's any 'tweaks' you want.

Disconnect all hdd's first. Then install os to ssd before connecting the hdd's so the installer doesn't put "System Reserve" on hdd.

If during os install you want to manage the os to send user/public/etc storage to hdd, then you connect hdd but make the "System Reserve" on the ssd prior to os install and that will keep it from putting it on hdd.
 
Bootup05 said:
Can you post a screenshot of Disk Manager?

It'll give viewers more of an idea how windows has been installed across the disks :)

You mentioned that you should be able to boot from the SSD, but for some reason aren't able to, I reckon this is most likely because something strange is going on with how Windows has assigned certain parts of the OS to different partitions.

I've had this problem before, and the first time I came across it, I wanted to throw my PC out the window :P
Click to expand...

Untitled-2.png
 
Well all is good in the world...! Everything's working now as I planned, I'll go into detail later.

However, first things first, HOW do you change the default save point for all programs to be different than the primary drive for the OS?
 
Benny Boy said:
You mean this? Change Installation Location
Click to expand...

I did that and it mostly works, but some stuff still gets through to the SSD... to tell you the truth, I haven't done the last step "Restart" yet because I'm downloading some steam games. Once I'm done, I'll reboot and tell ya if it's working fully.

Just a note, before you gave me that link I found an alternate fix that involved moving all of the Windows User folders like Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, ... to the other drive. So maybe this fix is the only one working right now, and the above one will start after reboot.
 
ScottALot said:
Once I'm done, I'll reboot and tell ya if it's working fully.

Just a note, before you gave me that link I found an alternate fix that involved moving all of the Windows User folders like Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, ... to the other drive. So maybe this fix is the only one working right now, and the above one will start after reboot.
Click to expand...
OK.
I like that moving idea.
There will probly be parts of some programs that have to be on c:\ , even after changing the default install location. When it tells me its going to put some needed files on c: anyways, I just put the whole program on c:.
 
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