move from fixed disk to RAID1

[lowbot]

Hi,

Ive got a few machines the previous admin installed on a single disk (no raid, no redundancy at all). Id like to buy a second hard drive and add a budget raid card to get RAID1 working.

Can I attach the drive to the RAID1 card and expect windows to boot up? Ive done the reverse before, remove a drive from a raid1 array and have it boot directly from the sata controller.

If not can I delete the disk drive from the install and try to boot windows onto the RAID1 card? Is windows capable of just detecting the RAID card on boot up and install a built-in driver?

If neither works, I imagine Im going to need an imaging solution. I own ghost and have a UBCD with drivexml and perhaps a free backup exec license to get by. I imagine I can use any of those with a raid1 card. Any suggestions on what RAID1 chipset is the most common with the easiest to get driver? Any other advice on how to accomplish this with minimum downtown and without reinstalling windows. This is for many different versions of windows: 2000, 2000 server, 2003, XP. So advice that isnt specific to one version would be helpful. Thanks.

--lowbot

 

[victorv]

hi,
it depends from arraycard.

I know well some of IBM machines. Some models (ie LSI),
at bios level, permit you to build a RAID1 sayng to the
card which of 2 drive is the master: you don'need reinstall,
neither image, becouse all is HW and the OP sees the same devices and then can use the same device-driver.

With other models, that use Adaptec (HostRaid), when you enable RAID, I don't remember if the card maintains data,
but I am sure that the card requirese a different device
driver, then the image that you would do, will not retrive
the same scsi device.

Make your experiment on a free machine, and/or, make an image (use BartPE+Ghost or UBCD4WinV322): this skill you build, however, may be useful for future use.

ciao
vittorio