Any way to setup RAID with just 2 HDD and not lose data?

J

jctazzy

Limp Gawd
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Nov 22, 2008
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150
I'm looking at tinkering around with RAID (1 probably, I don't do enough data shuffling activities to see any performance benefits from 0) and will soon be purchasing another WD 640GB to match the one I have now.

In reading about RAID setups it seems the act of changing BIOS settings to RAID kills any data currently on the disk, like partitioning. I only have one HDD today and will have a second one next week... when the new drive gets here is there any way I can actually save my existing installation to be mirrored across both drives? Or am I boned and have to start from scratch?

Thanks!
 
You can make an image of the current installation (given you have the space somewhere to store that image) and then when the new drive arrives, assuming it's the same as the old one so you have two matched ones (not an absolute necessity for RAID 1 but it IS highly recommended), you can set up the RAID 1 array, and restore the image to the first drive.

In the process that will be mirrored to the second drive automagically and in the end you'll have your current original installation in operation on a RAID 1 array.

At least that's the general principle. Making it all happen is dependent on creating that image so you can restore it to the array once you create it.

Or, as the poster above said, you could just start from scratch, clean, which is always recommended solution to situations like this. I know you're just adding a hard drive, basically, but it's how you intend to add it - as part of a mirrored array - that's throwing the wrench into this situation.

Good luck...
 
Thanks Joe Average... I'm off to do research on DriveImage XML and BartPE as that seems to be a frequently recommended way to make the image and then load it back on following installation of the new disk.

A buddy is letting me borrow his external USB HD... it'll take forever from what I've read so far but that's better than having to reinstall EVERYTHING again plus backup/restore my 200GB of family pics and videos. Worst case scenario I'll still have to re-install everything from scratch but this seems to at least have a legitimate chance at working.
 
jctazzy said:
it'll take forever from what I've read so far but that's better than having to reinstall EVERYTHING again plus backup/restore my 200GB of family pics and videos.
Click to expand...

You already have backup of that, right? Imagine for a moment that your power supply fails and kills your drive(s). If you feel panic setting in at that thought, you need to buy a USB HDD and make copies of your important data. RAID 1 won't protect you from anything else than the physical failure of 1 HDD, it doesn't protect you from accidental deletions, filesystem corruption or other problems.
 
I do have backups of the pics and videos, mostly on DVDs, so I'm ok as far as that goes. I'm mainly hoping to be able to make an image and keep all the games installs/saves/mods I have instead of having to pick through all the folders and find them one by one. Plus I wouldn't have to go through copying 60+ DVDs and some DV tapes back onto a the new array... that was a very un-fun night.
 
i was wondering if you start with raid 1 both drives are going to be wiped clean?

i was thinking of using an OS on one as storage but which raid ??

another option that i had an idea about put buth hdd's as storage at raid 1.... array?
 
Once I install the new HDD and setup RAID via BIOS all data on the pre-existing drive will be toast, that's what I was hoping to work around. In my case the second drive will be new but if it wasn't and already had data on it, it too would lose everything.

Some decent reading on RAID here, here and here.
 
thanks. now to figure out how we can put an image on one drive and set two hdd's to raid and take that image of an os or whatever and put it on the raid hdd's.

what a doosey.
 
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