What's Vista telling me?

shelbydog25

New Member
Just got a Gateway 4800 with Vista. ON each startup, after reaching the desktop a window opens us "format disk. system has 1 new drive. NVIDIA media can..." ect ect. I'm not sure what this is telling me, but it looks as though it wants to format my HDD?
 

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Can post a picture of the windows? What exactly is the message in full?
 

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System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Sony Vaio Z46GDU
    CPU
    [email protected] w/6MB L2 cache 1066MHz FSB
    Memory
    6GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    9300M GS 256MB + Intel Integrated 4500MHD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    13.1" WXGA True Colour Tough
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900
    Hard Drives
    320GB SATA 7200RPM
    Internet Speed
    1MB/s
:confused:
 

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System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    gateway/m6881
    CPU
    centrino core 2 duo 2.2ghz T7500
    Memory
    3GB
    Hard Drives
    500GB WD
    Mouse
    logitech
    Internet Speed
    fios 35MB not!!!!
how many Hard disks do you have? (after login) right click 'computer' either in start tab or on desktop and then click manage. click on storage devices and see how many Hard disk drives(HDDs) (see if one of them correlates to the "format") if it has no data on it and is another HDD (other than the one with the OS) format it, there'll be no issues NTFS is better (when you format, also make sure you do a quick format, you dont want to wait hours)
 

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System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    Core2Quad Q9550 @ 2.83Ghz O.C'd to 3.86Ghz
    Motherboard
    XFX Nvidia 790i Ultra SLI
    Memory
    4x2GB Corsair DDR3@ 1333Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus Nvidia GTX 280
    Sound Card
    Creative PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Benq 24in 1920x1080, Viewsonic 22in 1680x1050
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200 + 1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    Samsungx2 750GB SATA II 32MB SATA Hard Drive RAID 0 array
    PSU
    Antec 850Watt
    Case
    Cooler Master Cosmo S 1100 Extended ATX No PSU Aluminium Blk
    Cooling
    7x 120mm Fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech Dinovo Edge, Logitech Dinovo Mini
    Mouse
    Logitech G7, Logitech G9
    Internet Speed
    24Mbit p/s
thanks.. here is some more info.. i'm not sure if I should go further, here is what the window says: Media Shield setup wizard wants to set up "RAID ARRAY" .. spanning or Striping to optimize my HDD. it says Data will be lost if not backed up. it's a new computer, I'm leaning on NOT doing. anyone know how to disable this, it prompts me on every startup..

here is what I have for HDD: Disk 0 (14.65 GB Healthy EISA cofig) OS (C: 581 GB NTFS Healthy, boot, DVD ect

I assume this means I have one HDD which is partioned?

thanks
 
Last edited:

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OOPs, did a search and found my answer is another post.. for those wanting to know: here is the answer

Quote:
SMOKKINU


I had a PM from a new member here, asking me about my RAID 0 setup with my two velociraptor HDD setup...i figured I would shaire my response with the rest of the forum, to explain what RAID 0 and RAID 1 is, and help you to decide what is right for you if you decide to attempt a RAID setup on your own computer.


Foregive my grammar, lack of punctuation, etc...but I believe i put it in leymans terms, so everybody can understand it :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RAID 0 basically makes 2 (Identical, they MUST be identical hard drives, model number and all) work in tandem... data, that is written, and read off of the drive, is written in 128kb "stripes", though you can change the stripe size to 64kb, or even 32kb... 64kb is probly the fastest, but i am running at 128kb stripe size...

anyway, say you have a 1gig file, in RAID0, that file is stored on both HDD, in tandem, written in 128kb chunks back and forth. thus making each HDD, only having to write 500mb, vs. the same HDD by itself, having to write the entire 1gb. so you cut the read/write time by essentially almost half...but not really... there is some latency involved, but RAID0 def beats out a single HDD.

If you got the money, go grab yourself two velociraptors, and run those in RAID0, its nice ;-)

Now, the other advantage to RAID0, is your essentially taking 2 hard drives, and creating one single large HDD. so windows see's my two 300gb raptors, as a 600gb HDD.

Then, there is RAID 1, raid 1, is a "Mirror" and is excellent for data security...if 1 hard drive fails, all of your data is still mirrored on the other, and you lose nothing. there is no performance increase, and you also do not gain any HDD space either...so if you take two 500gb HDD, and run them in RAID 1, your system still only has 500gb Hard drive space...it's just copying every single file, twice. It doesnt make it slower, it just makes it more secure if you are the type of person who values the files on their computer.

There is other RAID types, which essentially combine RAID 0 and RAID 1, but those setups require multiple Hard Drives of the identical model, and can get pretty pricey, unless you got the dough.
 

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