RAID Set Up Question - PC Won't Boot

[synapse888]

Once you set up a raid reltaionship between two drives, is there any way to revert the drive(s) back to non-raid format? I fucked up and initialized the array (using the raid cards bios) before installing the driver in windows and now the pc won't boot. Is there any way to revert?

Thats the basic question, but heres a more detailed description of what happened if you have a minute:

Dell Dimension 4550, WIN XP pro with a Western Digital 120GB special edition hard drive. I bought a Highpoint RocketRaid 100 card and another WD 120GB special edition hard drive for the purpose of installing a RAID 1 setup. I followed the instructions in the manual:

1) powered off the computer
2) installed the RAID card
3) plugged in both harddrives, the drive I had been using into IDE 1 and
the new empty drive into IDE 2.
4) set the jumpers on both drives to master


I then started up the computer, the Highpoint Technologies, Inc. text came
up, so the adaptor was recognized. Then the drives were recognized (listed as WD1200... etc)

and then the next step listed in the manual is driver installation (which occurs when you're in windows). This makes the me think that the computer should boot into windows after the highpoint card and the two drives were recognized...but my computer did not boot, I got the "hit F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup" message. I tried changing around a couple options in the Dell bios (which is what happened after I hit the F2 key) but it was no help.

Since the computer wouldn't boot, the only thing I could think to do was to create the mirror relationship. So in the RAID card bios (hit cntl-h during start up), I created the relationship and my primary drive was duplicated to the blank drive (took over an hour), and the mirroring relationship was established. But that didn't help me boot either, the drives were recognized as RAID drives, instead of WDC1200 but ultimately I still come to the same F1 to retry boot screen. I've tried numerous bios configurations, but it was no help. I have set the boot drive in the raid bios but that didn't help either.

I have access to other computers I could plus drives into, install OS's, RAID cards etc so I'm pretty sure I can salvage my data worse case scenario...but I'd rather not do a reinstall if possible.

I'd ultimately like to get the raid working, but for now I'd just like to get the PC to boot.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[franklin97355]

I don't think there is once you set up the raid. Looks like you are going to have to start over. You might try booting from a floppy and see if you can get any of your data off though.