Windows 7 Home - Cannot Create / Encrypt Dynamic Disks And Mirror (RAID 1)
Oct 14, 2010
I have Home Windows 7 premium which means I cannot Encrypt, create dynamic disks, or mirror (RAID 1) my hard drives, so if this is true and I want to use any of these I need to go back to my Vista Ultimate?
I built a new computer.I wanted it to be more reliable. So, I got two identical hard drives. I installed Win 7 Pro as one big C: partition. Then I converted to dynamic disks and mirrored the first disk onto the second disk. Everything works! I even gave it a test. I powered off, and disconnected the SATA cable on the first hard disk. Windows booted right up, off the second HD. Great! It seems the mirroring works and can tolerate a missing disk.(I had to rebuild the mirror after doing this test.)I have some questions about how this will work over the long term. I noticed that when the first hard drive was missing from the mirror Windows never gave an error message. How would I detect a failing or failed hard drive? This is important, I think.How does Windows deal with a bad read on one hard drive in a two drive mirror? Say if one disk reads correctly, but the second disk reads a bad sector, how does Windows know what is the correct data?I found that Windows gives a text mode menu when I first boot up the computer. It wants me to select which Windows I will boot: the first hard drive or the second "Plex". Is there a way to set a default, so it will always boot the first instance of Windows without user intervention? Or would this defeat the mirroring function in the case of a bad hard drive?
I have a custom built HTPC running Windows7 Home Premium 64 bit that I bought from a tin-pot PC building firm last year. It has 4 physical drives in it. The first is configured as a "basic disk" with a single C: drive partition on which windows 7 is installed. The other three are configured as a RAID1 "dynamic disk" that present themselves in Windows as a single logical drive (E:) and that's where all my data lives.Windows Media Centre has now stopped working properly and I've tried everything to fix it, in case I can avoid a reinstall! mcupdate.exe always crashes(with System.IO.FileNotFoundException): I can't update TV signal set-up or guide data ) so now I need to reinstall windows. I'm an IT professional and I've installed many prior versions of windows in the past, but never Windows 7:
1) If I reinstall Windows 7 on my C:/ drive, will the E: drive be left unaffected and the fresh install of windows will still be able to see the E: drive and access all the data on it without any permissions issues?
2) The company that I bought the HTPC from neglected to give me a DVD with the Windows 7 installer (and prod key) on and they went out of business a few months ago, so I'm feeling a bit stuck. I've used a free tool to extract my Windows 7 product key from the registry, and borrowed a Windows 7 DVD from a friend. Will reinstalling from this DVD with the product key I've extracted work, or is the product key tied to the physical DVD (or does it just need to pass a checksum algorithm?) If I use my product key to reinstall, will I also be able to re"activate" Windows 7 or will it now think it's a dodgy copy? My current install says it's an OEM version (when I tried to get support from MS.com), but my friend's DVD is a full retail one - is that a problem too? What options do I have here? Can I, for example, create a copy of my friend's DVD and amend the prod-key in the poduct.ini file to be mine in the "HomePremium=" entry?
3) Before I attempt anything, I'm keen to do a full system backup. I've done this with the Windows 7 system image tool and have a 154 GB file that I've copied to an external USB hard drive, and I'm going to create a restore boot "disk" on a CD. However, If I need to do a restore, can the restore app read from a USB HD or not? I assume it can't read from the dynamic disk E: drive? Or can I just keep it on the C: drive, or will this get wiped completely when I reinstall windows, thus losing the image file?
I have seen this question being asked a few times already. I just bought 2xSamsung Spinpoint F3 1TB drives and I created a dynamic striped partition with MBR in comuter management. If I try to install win 7, after dvd boot-up, will I be able to select the partition and install windows on it ? I know all about the advantages and disadvantages of using software raid 0. But, my question is simple. Can you just install an O/S on that type of partition (will it be detectable?) or do I have to buy a "fake raid" controller or boot some type of application first to make it detectable everytime I boot up my computer?
I am trying to create both a static and dynamic network for my computer to choose from when I connect my notebook to one of two locations. I want to create a LAN 1 which picks up the static info specific and an LAN 2 for my dynamic connection.
This is possible to do with operating systems such as ubuntu and it is very easy, however is it even possible with Windows 7? I tried this with Vista as well and failed.
Can anyone help. I am tired of going into the TCP IP settings and reconfiguring this everyday.
My Laptop came preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium and I would like to create system recovery disks. I have a drive labeled RECOVERY (D. How do I create recovery disks from this drive?
cant install windows 7 on raid 0 setup gateway dx4831 i3.installs fine with single hd..Using two 1tb wd caviar green hd's.configured raid under bios w/o problem..windows see's them as single hd upon installation but fails after restart error message. windows can not configure to run on your hardware?
I'm trying to create a new disk partition so that I can install Windows 8 (Consumer Preview) on it. However, I'm running into an issue here. When I go to create the partition, I get to the final step and this is what I run into (see image below).I'm thinking of just leaving the space unallocated and formatting it when I do my install of 8, but then I'm afraid that might render my Windows 7 partition unbootable. Will that happen?
I have over that last few years been setting up a system of computers around my home, and now that the last one is in place (it was not planed in any way, however I have decided that I have enough computes scattered around) I want to set up a home server so that I can log onto the "same data" from any one of these computes, the problem is that only one of these computers is really fast enough and expandable enough (one is a desktop, all the others are laptops in clam-shell mode plugged into a monitor) to run a server. I have a lot of important data on the Hard drive, however I boot off a SSD, If in installed windows home server on that SSD could I still use that computer regularly?, that is as I normally would use that computer now with Windows 7 installed on it? also could I still access my Data on the HDD, and would is significantly slow down that computer in any way?
I am unable to create a folder anywhere in Windows 7 Home Premium - only a briefcase.Been fighting this problem for 1.5 months with potential solutions via Google with no resolution.My system is a Dell Inspiron 530s, Intel Core 2 Duo 430 @1.8Ghz 1.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1.I have been able to create folders since my Windows 7 installation last summer up through mid-April 2012. Believe that the registry was affected by some free SYNC program that I received when downloading a purchased document converter. I have not been able to locate the SYNC anywhere in the registry or by searching Google Desktop.Have used AVG PC Tuneup to clean up and defragment the registry several times with no resolution.Can I find a registry file after an initial install of Windows 7 that I can compare to entries in my current registry?
I have laptop with with following specs; Dell N5110core i74 Gb DDR3 ram500GB Hard isk2769mb GraphicsWhen I bought,it has only single disk drive "C" with registered Window 7 HomePremium,now I want to make partitions without format
I have windows 7 Home basic installed in my Laptop. When i bought it, it had only two partitions one for c: and one for recovery... i tried creating a partition but when i do so this appears:
And when i click yes on this alert, this appears:
I want to create partition without losing OS and recovery files in d: drive..
Installed a new M4 ssd today and loaded windows on it. Previously i was using 2 raptors in raid 0 for the os and programs. I re raided the 2 raptors and connected them to the jmicron ports and set them up for raid in bios, then created the raid 0 array no prob. Windows doesnt see the array when loaded up and i have the latest rst drivers installed..did this prior to the os install on the ssd. using the x58 e760a1 mobo. under device manager, the raid controller has an exclamation mark and no driver installed yet i have the latest rst 10.8.0.1003 installed..
Is there a way to encrypt a file or folder on Win 7 Pro 64bit ? I would like to keep all my passwords and/or account logins for all my on line activity somewhere on the PC so I don't have to setup a new password/login every time I can't remember what password goes with what on-line account ?
Running a personal home network with 2 Win 7 machines and 3 XP Pro (SP3) machines with a firewall and AV protection.
so i got this cool Hp laptop... nice the bad part ... I had a single 500 gb Hard disk. only two partitions ... experimented to partition it ... 1. I upgraded my basic drive to dynamic drive ( got four partitions now) 2. My OS (win 7 home premium x64) is on one of the partiotion on the dynamic disk. QUESTIONS How do i convert back to basic... i only have my OS key no install cd? Can i take a back up or sys image that i can use later on after converting my hard disk to basic?
Is there any way to password protect a folder in Win 7 (professional) ?I know about user permissions, but I want to enter a password every time I want to access (no keys/ certificates).After searching the web, I found Winzip. but there must be a better way.I just want an addtional layer of security in case someone in browsing using my login ID.
I have a new windows 7 laptop. I do not want my user account to have a password, however, I do not want anyone other than myself to see what I am doing. I have looked at hiding user accounts, however, in windows 7, there does not seem to be a way to access them. Is there some way to do what I want?
I share my apartment with 5 people and one of them has created a homegroup on the wifi network that we use. And now does not remember the password. i want to be able to create a homegroup and share it with my roommate but unfortunately i cannot create a second homegroup. is there any way i can reset the home group on this network and create one for myself?
I have tried to find the way to do this, but without success as I cannot see the wood for the trees.
I have a mature Windows 7 system, with so many applications loaded that rebuilding from scratch is just not an option. I have a 300MB Velociraptor wholly given over to the OS and another empty 300MB VR. I want to extend, that may not be the right word, my OS to use both disks in Raid 0.
Whether in the form of Windows software, this feature is that if we have two disk For example, one of the drives and disk drive 0 with one of the disc 1 are mirror.disk 0 if the is corrupted for any reason. Data from one come up?
I have an Intel 80GB SSD (bootable OS Windows 7 installed) and a WD 500GB HDD (storage and backup). Is it possible to mirror my SSD onto an 80GB volume on my HDD using Windows 7's RAID1? If so, do I suffer a performance hit on my read/write speeds in Windows 7 on my SSD?
I have windows 7, I have 3 harddisks.1 I use for my installation of windowsand on 2 harddisks I have my data but those 2 drives I made a mirror in Windows.What, if I reinstall windows, do I lose the data or does windows split the mirror?
I have Win 7 Pro 64 bit installed on an ASUS P7P55D LE motherboard which supports RAID 0,1,5 and 10 using Intel Matrix Storage Technology through an on board Intel P55 chip set. The system was assembled in Nov 2009 using two Western Digital Caviar Black 750Gb drives in RAID 1 as Drive C:. (I now know from Western Digital Customer Service that I shouldnt have done that, but lets move on from there). Last December, an error message informed me the RAID array was broken and identified one of the 750 Mb drives as needing replacement. I happened to have a spare 1.5Tb WD Caviar Black at the time, so I pulled the 750Mb drive and replaced it with the 1.5Tb drive. Life was once again good. Then on July 4th (wouldnt you know) there was a repeat of the December 2011 error message telling me to replace the other original 750Gb drive. Okay so I had another 1.5Tb WD Caviar Black laying around (dont ask) and did a similar swap out. Thats when I emailed WD Customer Support asking about the 750 since their diagnostic software said the drives were fine. Thats when I learned that I should be paying lots more for enterprise quality drives if I want/need RAID. Well thats not what ASUS says in their advertising, but live and learn. All thats prologue, because my real question is whether its possible to break the hardware-based RAID 1 array and set up a Windows 7-based RAID 1 with the two 1.5Tb WD Caviar Black drives without having to reinstall Windows 7.
I bought a laptop running windows 7 SP1 with some other software already installed on it. I recently upgraded to a desktop that is much faster also running windows 7. I made a mirror of the laptop HDD. Is there a way to install this mirror onto the desktop HDD so that I can use my new desktop as if it were my laptop?