New to RAID, need help!!

[davo1977]

Hi,
I have a partitioned 300gb Maxtor HD and was thinking about buying a second identical one to use in RAID-1 but at the same time thinking about buying two 36gb Raptors to use for the OS in RAID-0. Can I install the fresh OS on the 2 Raptors using RAID-0 and mirror the 300gb Maxtor's with RAID-1 without losing any of the information on the HD? I know how the enbale the RAID settings in the BIOS by enabling each of the 4 SATA's and I know to insert the floppy disk for RAID drives at the beginning of the OS setup. The 300gb has the current OS installed on it and it is partitioned into three 100gb drives. Can you help?

Thanks,
Mark

Athlon 64 FX-55 w/Thermalright XP-90C Heatsink
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
300gb Maxtor Diamondmax 10
Corsair Twinx2048-3200C2PRO (2.5-3-3-6)
256mb Geforce 6800 Ultra
Hiper 580w Type-R PSU
Thermaltake Tsunami Aluminum Case

 

[jlshelton]

Several software programs, including Norton Ghost, are available for doing "drive image copying." That lets you move an operating system partition from one drive to another. Norton Ghost is usually availble with generous rebates, such as recently at Fry's where the rebate equaled the purchase price!

 

[davidmcolaco]

I think you should do a backup of the information before you set up the raid parameters. Normally after you create the raid set, you will have to format the partition of the raid.

 

[rvnguy]

davo1977,

Having recently been posed with a similar dilema, I found that support for this is rather sparse depending what mobo you are using. I was using an ASUS and like MSI there is little information available. I wanted to setup SATA RAID 1 on two SATA drives with the OS already installed without having to re-install.

This aparently, is mandantory in WIN2k and therfore a workaround was developed by NVidia. Why all mobo mfg don't post this info on their sites is beyond me. Here is a site with the manual and if you want to prevent a re-install look to the end of this manual for the WIN2k instructions.

As the manual is for the NVidia chipset and not the mobo this will/does work on other mobo's with this chipset.

NVidia Raid Manual.

http://www.giga-byte.com/Download/D...List/Manual/manual_sata_raid_os_nforce3_e.pdf

Hope this helps

rvnguy

"I know everything..I just can't remember it all