Reformatting (SATA RAID Question)

[TastyHiHatWork]

It's time for me to reformat my computer.

I have Windows and all my programs (except games) running off a 36 gig SATA Raptor. The rest of my data and games (Half-Life 2, Doom3, Oblivion, etc.) are stored on a 600 gig SATA RAID0 array (two DiamondMax10 300 gig drives).

My question is this...I want to reformat and reinstall Windows XP Professional and all my software, but I'd like to leave the RAID drives alone since they are mostly data...is this possible? Should I disconnect the two drives before formatting? If I do, will they be recognized properly when I plug them back in?

Also, will this affect my games? I installed them to the RAID drive...but I'm assuming Windows won't recognize them...is there a way to avoid having to reinstall them entirely, since they are already there?

[glc]

WHY do you feel you need to reformat?

[TastyHiHatWork]

Various issues that have been building up. Read this post...those issues are still there, and that was in October.

1. I've had performance complications with Adobe Creative Suite 2. My rig is brand new (this summer) and top of the line, but programs take a long time to load, random quitting, etc. (Legit copy. I'm a photographer/designer, so it's important to me.)
2. I use Firefox, but I get sporadic IE popups and I've run about 10 different spyware programs to try to get rid of them, but nothing works.
3. Certain games crashing (probably driver issues).
4. USB problems (mentioned in earlier posts).
5. I get a Runtime error with Roxio programs all of a sudden, and a complete unistall and reinstall hasn't solved the problem. The Roxio support hasn't provided any help.
6. I like to periodically format anyway...keeps the ol' compy running more smoothly.
7. Computer will not shut down properly (see first thread linked).

This would be my first format on the new computer, so I just want to make sure that the SATA RAID will be recognizable and won't be deleted.

[TastyHiHatWork]

Just a note, I don't need solutions to the above problems, I just need to know what the process would be to format my system drive and not my RAID array, as mentioned in the first post.

[TastyHiHatWork]

Move to hardware forum?

I hate to bump my own thread, but I really need an answer to this before I try to format.

[glc]

Disconnecting the array may cause the bios to go nuts when you start it up with no array - and there may be issues getting it reconnected when you do plug the drives back in. I don't see where leaving the array connected would cause problems reinstalling Windows, but of course the raid drivers will need to be reinstalled for Windows to see the array. ALL software on the array will have to be reinstalled in order for Windows to have a clue that it's there, whether you disconnect the array or not - and you may have access and permissions issues with the existing data. See why I asked what I did?