Windows 10 reinstall plan - does it make sense?

[swee'pea99]

Starting point is my PC is getting a bit flakey. Or rather, it's been flakey for awhile, but it's getting too flakey, so...

I currently have three drives:

Except there's actually four hard drives in there. Local Disk C:, which claims to be 500gb, is in truth two 250gb drives, configured by someone cleverer than me to pretend to be one. Which would be fine except that when it starts up it reports one of the two disks as dodgy. Sometimes it carries on booting up regardless; sometimes it says it can't find an operating system; sometimes it starts up ok it you turn it off and turn it on again. I've been living with this for a couple of years, but recently it's been showing increasing reluctance to start up at all. Most recently I got it running again by doing a system restore. But clearly this is all going to end in tears. So...

Current plan is to:

• Download Windows 10 as ISO files and make a DVD
• Export all the music that's on drive G to an external drive for storage
• Format drive G
• Physically remove the two 250gb drives
• Install Windows 10 on drive G disk

Does that make sense/sound doable? And if so, any handy hints and tips?

I don't suppose there'd be any easy way to transfer the downloaded programs I currently have?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

 

[MartinQ]

Have you thought about getting an ssd to replace the c: drive. You could clone the existing drive and then swap. Would be faster to boot up as well.

 

[MontyVeda]

As Martin says, go SSD.

A 120gb SSD should be plenty big enough will set you back around £20.

You won't regret it.

edit... and W10 can be installed from an 8gb USB stick

 

[cyberknight]

I might be wrong but sounds like a raid array and one of the HDD is starting to fail , i assume you have performed a disk checkand repair ?

 

[fossyant]

I might be wrong but sounds like a raid array and one of the HDD is starting to fail , i assume you have performed a disk checkand repair ?

Thats what I think too. It's RAID. Find the real size of the drive and find out which one is faulty - you'll probably have to pop the 'hood' to trace which port the HD is plugged into. Replace with a similar drive, then you can tell the PC to re-build the array (it should come up with an error at start).

The other option, is to get the C copied to a new SSD before complete failure. You'll then have some twiddling in the bios to stop the RAID array and use one drive.

 

[Cycleops]

The only thing that makes sense is upload what you need to the cloud, wipe the rest, sell it and buy a Chromebook or tablet.

 

[MartinQ]

Id simply get an ssd large enough to replace your c: drives(s). They're not that expensive these days and simply cloning everything could save a fair bit of time. In theory, you shouldn't have to reinstall and you have t he original drives to swap back in if things go pear shaped. 128 would be comfortable for windows, office, .... But these days Id probably go for 256 would. Obviously depends on what you've got On your c: drives.

Although a backup is always useful ...

 

[MontyVeda]

The only thing that makes sense is upload what you need to the cloud, wipe the rest, sell it and buy a Chromebook or tablet.

great idea if all you want to do is browse and message people... but some of us want a little more than a tablet can offer.

 

[si_c]

Thats what I think too. It's RAID. Find the real size of the drive and find out which one is faulty - you'll probably have to pop the 'hood' to trace which port the HD is plugged into. Replace with a similar drive, then you can tell the PC to re-build the array (it should come up with an error at start).

The other option, is to get the C copied to a new SSD before complete failure. You'll then have some twiddling in the bios to stop the RAID array and use one drive.

Can't rebuild a RAID0 array as there's no redundancy.

Get a 500gb SSD to replace your existing 500gb drive and then install windows onto that. Once you have it installed then you can remove the two 250gb drives.

If you disconnect all the drives and then install windows on the SSD you can then simply reconnect them afterwards and keep all the data.

 

[fossyant]

Can't rebuild a RAID0 array as there's no redundancy.

Ah, of course. Mine was RAID 1 - Mirrored ? TBH SSD's are that more reliable. RAID0 was for speed wasn't it !

 

[si_c]

Ah, of course. Mine was RAID 1 - Mirrored ? TBH SSD's are that more reliable. RAID0 was for speed wasn't it !

Yep, RAID0 is striped 1 is mirrored and 5 is parity.

SSDs also fail in a different way meaning you are less likely to lose data.

 

[swee'pea99]

Have you thought about getting an ssd to replace the c: drive. You could clone the existing drive and then swap. Would be faster to boot up as well.

I'm really not bothered about SSD. I know they're quicker to startup, but since this PC's on 24 hours, it's not really an issue. Could I clone the existing C drive onto the (500mb) G disk?

I might be wrong but sounds like a raid array and one of the HDD is starting to fail , i assume you have performed a disk checkand repair ?

It is a raid array, and I don't think I have. I'm going to give that a shot, so when it all goes horribly wrong I'll know who to blame

Get a 500gb SSD to replace your existing 500gb drive and then install windows onto that. Once you have it installed then you can remove the two 250gb drives.

If you disconnect all the drives and then install windows on the SSD you can then simply reconnect them afterwards and keep all the data.

Can I not do exactly the same using the existing G drive rather than a new SSD? Disconnect all but the G drive, install Win10 on it, then etc? (If I then reconnected the original C drive(s), how would the PC know which Win10 to start up?

I get easily baffled by this sort of stuff. Can you tell? I guess the point is, my ideal scenario would be to end up with the current G drive now promoted to C, Win 10 installed, and the old C drive(s) available for storage. Is there an easy route to that which doesn't involve SSDs (delay, hassle, cost) or raid stuff (over my head)?

Anyway, I'm off to try a chkdsk /f on the C drive, so wish me luck...

 

[cyberknight]

You can indeed make the g drive the main drive as long as your bios knows to boot from that 1st .

 

[swee'pea99]

I'm chasing my own tail now. Tried to install Win10 on the other drive, but of course it just re-installed on the existing C 'drive'. Tried unplugging both 'C' HDs, to enable me to run the Win10 install from a USB onto the other drive, but it just came up with 'can't find drives' messages. I really need to get rid of this raid business, so I can ditch the dodgy HD, but this menu has me spooked:

I don't want to lose all the data on that drive - for all I know My Documents is on that drive! But I really would like to abandon the whole raid thing. (But if I do that, will my computer refuse to start up at all?)

Flailing, rather. Any suggestions appreciated.