Can I clone a single HD OS to Raid HD without reinstalling windows.

Clairvoyant · 6 Apr 2009 at 10:16

Hi all
I currently have a single 80 gig sata 1 HD with my OS on (I cant really afford SDDs).

So its be advised that I get a pair of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-130-WD

Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache. And Raid them (faster than what I have).

Now can I plug these drives in and set them in the bios as a raid. Then when in windows clone my current OS HD to the new array.

Is this possible.

brakeinup · 6 Apr 2009 at 10:29

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17977780

I tried the ImageX method but it failed at the start so I gave up in the end as I did not have the time to research the error.

FaceplantSi · 6 Apr 2009 at 12:00

Try using Acronis True Image to clone from your original HDD - you can get a trial version which should be fine for your needs. I did this going from a single HDD to another, but it should work fine going to an array. Be aware tho that you'll also be cloning any additional 'bloat' that your OS has picked up (and if Vista that could be quite a lot!) so a clean install is usually better if you can afford the time.

BoomAM · 6 Apr 2009 at 12:03

It depends if the RAID controller will do its stuff independant of what windows does.
If it does then you should be fine.

ecat · 6 Apr 2009 at 12:51

This worked for me, for your requirements you can ignore steps 3) & 4)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13718840&postcount=8

The solution to all my problems, all the ones I can discuss in a public forum at least, was the Volume ID trick

Clairvoyant · 7 Apr 2009 at 13:28

Would a pair of these Western Digital 250GB Raid Edition III SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache be better than the Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache.

Besides they are 250 instead of 320

OrphanBoy · 7 Apr 2009 at 14:23

Worked for me. I went from an 80GB PATA drive (which contained my XP install) to a 2x320GB RAID 0 set up without reinstalling Windows and did it all without fancy tools.

1) Make sure both the source and destination drives are properly detected under windows. I did this whilst Windows was still running off the source drive!

2) Use a simple tool like dd to copy to partition table from the source drive to the dest drive (leaving me with ~560GB of unpartitioned space)

3) Reboot, in order to write the partition table

4) Use dd to again to copy each partition from the source drive the new equivalent-sized partition in the destination drive

5) Use a normal partition tool to add new partitions to the unpartitioned space on the destination drive

6) Unplug old hard disk, boot from new RAID array! Windows complained that I hadn't shut down properly, since I'd imaged the drive whilst it was still running but no problems. Been running smoothly for over two years without problem!

By the way, dd is a common unix tool for writing data to and from hardware devices and I used to to pull the data straight from the drive. You can get a windows version, a Cygwin version, UNIX, Linux etc. I think I may have even tried to do this imaging process via VMWare running Linux and having the physical drives mapped in.

Clairvoyant · 8 Apr 2009 at 21:15

All up and runnign with the use of Acronis True Image.

just used HD tune to test the new raid, and the read benchmark min,max and avg are all 5 times better than before.

cje · 8 Apr 2009 at 21:27

That's great to know. Because I've got Acronis trueimage, but am contemplating going RAID.

Clairvoyant · 8 Apr 2009 at 22:23

I just used the clone feature.

BoomAM · 13 Apr 2009 at 10:17

Clairvoyant said:
just used HD tune to test the new raid, and the read benchmark min,max and avg are all 5 times better than before.

5 times better?
Either your last setup wasnt configured correctly or your reading the burst speeds....

Clairvoyant · 13 Apr 2009 at 21:02

my old drive was a single 80gig Sata 1 drive on its own. This is a raid0 2 drive set up now.

And yes about 5 times faster.

BoomAM · 14 Apr 2009 at 14:02

Clairvoyant said:
my old drive was a single 80gig Sata 1 drive on its own. This is a raid0 2 drive set up now.

And yes about 5 times faster.

I still question the config on the old drive or what your using to compare tbh.
No offence like.

Just im well versed in RAID and HDDs and know what to expect and not what to expect.

.

Clairvoyant · 14 Apr 2009 at 14:45

I wish I kept the screen shots.

using HD Tune Pro on a read benchmark.
min 100mb
max 217
avg 174

on my old HDD was something like

min 22
max 55
avg Cant remember

CPU was less on the old HDD.

But yeah thats the rough figures.