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I had (2x) M2 drives from a z390 chipset motherboard in RAID 0 configuration booting windows 10, using regularly and behaving fine. RAID was set up in windows disk management. It wouldn't work from the bios and I don't honestly remember how I managed to set it up I think cloning was involved at the time. Moving to a z790 chipset and...
Attempted to clone to a single drive before installation in case I needed it would not work because of the RAID being set up with software not bios. ok...
So, reinstalled windows from scratch onto one of the 2 drives. No more RAID but this is fine, operating off a single drive is fine with me.
But...now...within windows disk management it still shows the combined volume of RAID from the previous build!
It is also showing the healthy single drive that windows is installed and running from now, as a separate entity.
Attempting to access the combined volume fails. Attempting to format the volume from disk management fails. Disk management shows it as a still combined ~2tb volume (the drive is only 1tb). When I attempt to format the errant drive from file explorer window it returns an error.
Attempting to convert the combined volume in disk management to a dynamic volume returns an error.
Physical removal of the errant drive results in boot errors (!) and cannot boot windows from the single drive without the 2nd drive physically on the board, even though it is not part of the OS volume and is not accessible (in terms of formatting to use for storage or anything else).
What is going on and how do I fix this?? I want the system running off the single drive without the physical need for the 2nd un-used drive to be on the motherboard..I also want to be able to use the 2nd un-used drive as a storage drive. Right now it's a very strange place this system is in..
Screens attached
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Sounds good, you're welcome. May need to download, extract and load a controller driver in order to access the other storage.
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
Looks like you somehow ended up with the system partition (boot loader files) on one disk and the boot or operating system installed on the other disk. Not sure what you wanted to end up with, but the simplest solution may be to install one disk, then clean install the operating system. This way the system and boot partitions will end up on a single disk. Then you could add the second disk to do as you wish.
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Oh darn it I just got all updates and programs reinstalled etc..the absolute only way to fix this is physical removal of one disc and then completely start from scratch?? Ouch....
I am going to leave this open for a few days hoping for an answer that doesn't involve reinstalling everything again, I just went through all that
to answer the question what did I want to end up with, originally, a raid 0 striping setup like I had before, but fresh installing windows onto that seems impossible the motherboard bios won't let me create a raid array of m2's to install onto, so, single drive time. It's fine still fast enough just not what I originally wanted
That will be the simplest solution. The only other option might be to shrink the C:\ operating system disk, then move the system partition over to it.
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
installing windows onto that seems impossible the motherboard bios won't let me create a raid array
I'd ask the mobo manufacturer or in their support forums about this problem.
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I attemped as you suggested and removed one drive, using a boot drive to reinstall windows, and well...see attached.
It still thinks there is a nearly 2 tb combination of 1tb m2's to install to, but it is not 2tb it is seriously just a single 1 tb drive by itself in there. I am holding the 2nd drive in my hand as I take this photo!
the bios shows it as a single 1tb drive. the windows setup does not see a single 1tb drive but instead sees a raid volume that doesn't physically exist, the hardware literally isn't in the machine anymore to even allow it to think this way. I am beyond confused.
advice? so so bizarre!
installing from boot drive onto machine with 1 the 2 drives removed lands me here, windows setup still thinks there is a 2 tb volume that isn't there to install to, and doesn't see the single drive as it is
what now??
I'd delete all partitions found, then let windows setup create a new one.
That doesn't work Dave, it tells me "we couldn't delete the selection partition. [Error: 0x80070057]"
This is with a fresh windows boot usb created using my laptop just to be sure the boot usb wasn't the problem.
That doesn't work Dave, it tells me "we couldn't delete the selection partition. [Error: 0x80070057]"
This is with a fresh windows boot usb created using my laptop just to be sure the boot usb wasn't the problem.
Windows can only use what the disk controller presents to it. If the disk controller is presenting a 2tb array then I can only guess there may still be a configuration left in the controller's memory. May need to contact the pc or mobo manufacturer for instructions to clear it.
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
will do, but already consulted the asus manual and downloaded latest bios and flashed bios to most current version (12/2023) and tried again, and still so oddly same situation of a 2tb being observed but not physically present, all reformat and delete options yielding errors and a 1 tb drive only being present.......
You'll need to find a way to clear out the old configuration from disk controller memory.
Just checking if there's any progress or updates?
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
I flashed the bios to a newer version and tried again, no change to the situation. Will be on phone with motherboard manufacturer Monday morning and update this thread after that phone call
In the meantime running stable just a ghost in the machine...
May need to contact the pc or mobo manufacturer for instructions to clear out the disk controller configuration memory.
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
Just checking if there's any progress or updates?
--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--
the update is a new 2 tb m2 drive is on the way and I am going to attempt to clone my os and files onto that new drive then yank the old drives. if that doesn't eliminate the ghost partition or the whole needing both drives to run thing I don't know what will.
And yes don't worry you don't have to keep telling me to close the thread when my issue is resolved, I will.