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I have a very strange problem with MS SW RAID-5 volume.

On a workstation, I have Windows Server 2008 R2 with System volume (HW RAID 1) and Data volume (SW RAID 5, consisting of 4 disks).

I wanted to install Windows 7 Ultimate there, so I replaced both system disks and performed clean installation of Windows 7; then I went to Disk Management and imported those 4 foreign dynamic disks - everything was OK, but after the import, the RAID-5 volume was Failed, I didn't even see original volume's name - and what's even stranger, menu items "Repair volume" or "Reactivate volume" aren't there!

When I return original drives with Windows Server 2008 R2 and reimport back these disks, volume is OK; I checked this volume by chkdsk, no problems; I did full diagnostics of all drives - but I'm unable to enable this RAID-5 in Windows 7.

Thanks for any advice or pointer, I'm quite frustrated.

Mark Henderson
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Robert Goldwein
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2 Answers2

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Windows 7 Professional does not support RAID5 volumes out of the box, only RAID 1.

Mark Henderson
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What you're seeing is a limitation of the version of Windows. No version of Windows 7 supports software RAID-5. Microsoft finally added support for software RAID-1 in Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, but not RAID-5.

Evan Anderson
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