Image to RAID?

[2old2rock]

I have two new SATA drives that I was going to use to set up RAID when I re-read the instructions. I have an ASRock 775Dual-VSTA with the VIA P880 Pro chip. The VIA instructions say to install the VIA Raid drivers while re-installing Windows (F6, install third party RAID Drivers, continue installing XP, etc). I was planning to set up the RAID and then image a copy of my current XP setup from my IDE drive onto the RAID array.

Is there any way to 'retro fit' or install the RAID drivers without reinstalling Windows?

How can i get my XP installation from my PATA drive onto my RAID array? Am I missing something here?

Any tips, links, suggestions welcome.

Thanks


ASRock 775Dual-VSTA
ATI 1900 PCIE
2G DDR2 SuperTalent
Seagate 160 PATA
2 Seagate 250 SATA

 

[corkyg]

Yes - normally you can install RAID w/drivers in a fully operational Windows system. RAID controllers can be installed and removed any time.

As for your PATA drive data, clone it to one of the RAID drive candidates and then let the controller build the drive from there.

 

[2old2rock]

Thanks! That was easy. Just booted from my new RAID drive & everything seems to work. I cloned my PATA drive to one of the SATA drives. Used the Via VRaid tool. When it asked if I wanted to keep the MBR I said yes (or some Q like that).

One quirk. I thought windows would register it as 500 G. Explorer says it is just a 250 (the size of one drive). Via VRaid seems to think everything is fine. Shows it as Raid 0, striped, two disks.

Seagate DiscWizard says there are 250G of unallocated Space. Wonder what I did? Any idea how to get back the 250? Should I delete the raid. Then set it up with blank discs, then clone my PATA drive to it? Any other ideas?


Thanks

 

[2old2rock]

Got it. For some reason whenever I tried to keep the data already on the SATA, it would act like I had set up a RAID but would leave exactly the space of the other drive unallocated. I kinda think it wasn't really RAID at all. So I set up the RAID first letting it destroy the data on both drives. Then I cloned the PATA drive over and voila'.

All set. Thanks for the encouragement to give it a try!