raid 1 after a complete install ?

tonyzero

tonyzero

tonyzero

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hi,

i have a asus T2-AE1 and i use it to update my web page 24/7 now i had a drive fail on me about two months ago so today i have installed a second drive which is the same make and model as the old one but what i want to know is can i now setup raid 1 even though i already have xp installed on one of the discs ?
 
Yes, RAID 1 is mirroring, so you can only see 1 drive, but your raid controller is making a copy of the disk you can see to the disk you cant see.

When you install the 2nd new disk, shouldn't there be an option to rebuild array or something similar in the raid utility/config ?

I only use raid 5 and 0, so dont know too much about raid 1
 
I think he meant he installed XP on a single drive after his first one failed a few months ago, and has recently bought a second drive and wants to setup RAID 1 on the 2 drives.

If this is the case I dont think you can do this and will have setup the RAID 1 array and then install your OS on to it.
 
It's down to the controller.

On raid 1 it's normally ok to set the raid up and force the controller to copy the data of your drive to the other to fix the array.
 
fobose said:
I think he meant he installed XP on a single drive after his first one failed a few months ago, and has recently bought a second drive and wants to setup RAID 1 on the 2 drives.

If this is the case I dont think you can do this and will have setup the RAID 1 array and then install your OS on to it.
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this is correct :D

last night i installed the SiS raid driver and had to reboot after windows loaded i had a program that SiS opened which was for making a raid setup which i used, after i copied the source disc to the target disc i had t reboot again and every thing looked like it was going fine i got the windows is loading screen but then a very quick flash of a blue screen and the system rebooted.

now the only way i could get windows to start was to unplug the second drive.

i did see that on the bios there is an option to boot from RAID rom which i tried but i was told that my raid was broken and it showed both drives as broken so what have i done wrong ?

if i boot into windows on the one drive can i then plug the second one back in and erase the second disc so i can try and setup raid again but do it from the bios ?


also if i delete a raid do i lose all data or dose it mean that the raid that is setup will be returned to a single disc like before ?
 
I think you need to format both your drives (or if you have valueable data on your current drive, back it up on another computer/DVD first), run the RAID setup when it asks, setup which RAID mode you want to use, create any partitions, then install windows.
 
OK after trying raid and not having any joy i thought i would just use the second drive for backing up but for some reason my PC now reboots when ever i plug the second drive in to the main board, i have reformatted it but still no go dose any one have any ideas why it is doing this ?
 
Is it SATA or IDE ? Also have you made sure the jumpers are set correctly on the new drive ?

In answer to your original question, I would personally take a ghost image of the drive and then create the raid array wiping all the data. Because it would be in a raid 1 then the drive size would match the one in the ghost image, which you could restore over the top!
 
OK i know this post is a bit old now but today i got around to cloning my hard disc after i had failed attempted to setup raid 1 with xp already install so now i have cloned my disc and booted from it to check it i now want to know how i setup a fresh raid 1 and then copy my cloned disc to the new array.

what it the best way to do this ?

i am using an ASUS T2-AE1 which only has 2 SATA sockets.
 
fobose said:
I think you need to format both your drives (or if you have valueable data on your current drive, back it up on another computer/DVD first), run the RAID setup when it asks, setup which RAID mode you want to use, create any partitions, then install windows.
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<edit> and I mean the RAID setup on bootup, for me (I have Intel ICH5R RAID controller) I get a Intel RAID bios status message on the screen which says press CTRL-I to enter the Intel RAID Option interface or something like that. Then it asks me what I want to do i.e "Create RAID volume".

<edit 2> Ignore this bit, I was wrong. First edit was right.
 
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fobose said:
<edit> and I mean the RAID setup on bootup, for me (I have Intel ICH5R RAID controller) I get a Intel RAID bios status message on the screen which says press CTRL-I to enter the Intel RAID Option interface or something like that. Then it asks me what I want to do i.e "Create RAID volume".

<edit 2> Ignore this bit, I was wrong. First edit was right.
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so i still have to install windows xp even though i have it on a cloned disc :(
 
Yup, you must setup the array before installing XP, and when you install XP you need to press F6 to install the Raid controllers driver.
 
fobose said:
Yup, you must setup the array before installing XP, and when you install XP you need to press F6 to install the Raid controllers driver.
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ok so if i install xp how do i then copy my cloned disc so i get back to the setup i had before hand
 
I think you are missing the point. When you setup a RAID 1 array you lose any data on your disks (I am sure thats the case), then you can setup partitions within the windows installer, and then install windows on to your RAID 1 array. - You do realise that RAID 1 copies the exact same data on to both of the hard drive (thats why its called Mirroring).

You will need to BACKUP your data on your hard drive to either DVD or another hard drive/computer as I have said a few times now..
 
sorry maybe i should have said but i have two seagate drives for the raid setup and a third disc (clone) of what i am running at the moment so yes i know that both drive will be blank when setting up raid but what i am trying to find out is how i get the data of the cloned disc after i have setup raid on the two seagates.

i hope that makes things clearer :D
 
ah sorry I see now, I think you said you only had 2 sata ports and I presume all 3 drives are sata? This is obviously going to be a problem. I was going to suggest creating an image of the hard drive you want to copy with a program like norton ghost but I dont think it will work due to the setup being different - unless you have partitions and you could just create an image of the partition without an OS install on to it.

Otherwise you're going to have to plug your third hard drive in to another computer, or a external caddie which has a USB port on to it - can get cheap ones for about £30;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-003-EN&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

Hope this helps.
 
first of all fobose i do appreciate your help by sticking with me on this :D

right with regards to the hard drive caddy, some time ago i brought a sata to usb converter which dose the same thing as a caddy so i can use a usb port for the disc drive that has my current xp install on it but can i copy from a usb port when i have the raid 1 setup?

also you pointed out to me about raid 1 as copying the same data to both disc which yes that is correct i do want that so if i lose one drive i still have one to fall back on.
 
No problem, no one else seemed to help!

Just to clear up any confusion though, are you going to be installing a copy of winxp on to your RAID1 array and installing/setuping up stuff as normal, then you want to copy backup files to the array via the third hard drive from your USB gadget? If so then that will work fine.

If however you are hoping to setup the array and plug the hard drive in VIA USB and try to copy all the files across with your current install and using that copy of windows then no, I dont think that will work.

If one of your hard drives in the RAID 1 array happen to fail, you can just get another drive of the same size and plug it in and the array will re-build itself by copying files back on to the new drive.
 
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fobose said:
If however you are hoping to setup the array and plug the hard drive in VIA USB and try to copy all the files across with your current install and using that copy of windows then no, I dont think that will work.
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dame thats what i was hoping to do :(
 
I thought that could be the case. I honestly dont think you can do it, I could be wrong though but surely a nice clean install would be better anyway?
 
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