Can I setup RAID 0, by getting a second drive without losing files on my orignal drive?

Question

I recently bought a second identical Maxtor 200gb SATA drive. It's identical to the one I've had in my computer for six months. Can I set up RAID 0 with the two drives without losing the files on the original drive? Will I have to reinstall Windows? Thanks

Answer 1

Update: For RAID 0, nope... at least not strictly in hardware. There's no data redundancy with RAID 0, so losing any drive in the array loses everything.

For Raid 1, It depends upon the RAID controller- some will let you create the array from an existing drive without losing data (same as if one drive had failed and you need to rebuild), others may require you to reformat and set up the array first, before anything is installed.

As dze says, you could use Ghost first and try restoring after creating the array.

Answer 2

I have actually tried to do this before.

I used Norton Ghost to make a backup of the partition before creating the RAID 0 array. After creating the array, I tried copying back the files in Partition Copy mode. Windows would not boot, even after a reinstall (Windows Repair). Tried again with a different mode after formatting the array, I copied the file structure into the new partition and tried to get windows to boot, still can't, also tried everything as before with no success.

I tried a couple of other weird methods, which also didn't work.

So, as a conclusion I would say that would not be able to just copy your whole system onto the new array without reinstalling Windows and then restoring your files from a backup (as I had to eventually do myself).

Answer 3

Raid 0 divides the data between to drives. Not files like one file to one harddrive another file to the other harddrive. It writes like one letter on one hd and one letter to the other. This is why raid 0 are faster. You would need a 3rd hd to copy data to it, create the raid and move the data back. And yes, you would need to reinstall windows if not using a program like ghost to do the copying. But any issues/error that was on the old hd would be transfered.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

i think its an iffy idea ... but ive heard of people using a mirroring app like nortons ghost to first backup their drive ... then creating an array ... then restoreing the backup to the raid settup .... i guess that would entail installing the raid driver first before backing up .. im not sure .. ive heard people have successfully done it but never tried it myself ..

Answer 6

'fraid not, the drives need to both be blank to start striping data. That's for the best though, because you wouldn't want just your new music files to be saved if one hard drive goes.