Changing an existing XP Pro system to use RAID 1

[richardm]

Could do with some advice here!

I have a Windows XP Pro machine that was formerly set up to use RAID 1 via an onboard Adaptec RAID controller. For one reason or another, this was de-RAIDified to have Windows installed on one drive. I'd like, now, to re-RAID it.

Is this possible without destroying the current setup? Can anyone either talk me through the steps, or point me to a suitable guide?

Thanks

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Not directly familiar with the Adaptec controller, but two questions are likely relevant no matter what controller: Do you have data on all disk drives installed on this machine? Do you plan on adding drives to form the RAID subsystem?

 

[richardm]

There is a disk in the machine that used to be the mirror - it currently doesn't have anything on it that needs to be kept, so it can resume that role.

 

[e-sabbath]

Meh, it's all hardware level. Install appropriate drivers, image, re-raid drives, restore image, bob's your uncle.

 

[richardm]

Meh, it's all hardware level.

good...

Install appropriate drivers,

... with you, with you...

image, re-raid drives, restore image

Yes, this is where I stop following. I've not dealt with raid much, so a lot of this is not understanding terminology. By "Image", do you mean "make a copy of the working system"? By re-raid drives, well, yeah, I know that's what I need to do, but I'm here because I'm not quite sure how to proceed

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yes, imaging means making a copy of the existing system. Always a good idea. But in your case you may be able to avoid the restore.

Take an image of your system and then boot up in to the BIOS setup and see if your RAID options are available through the BIOS. If you are going for RAID 1 (mirroring, for redundancy) you may be able to simply turn it back on.

Do you have a disk from Adaptec or the original install disk? You may need that depending on what you find in your BIOS screens.

 

[Wudang]

No no. All you have to do is help the drive enhance it's internal RAIDness. Borrow a friends raid drive and take a small scraping of the drive surface - near the edge where it won't matter - and put that in a phial of distilled water. Thump against a leather-bound copy of Babbage's "Science and reform", dilute tenfold and repeat say 30 times. Pour this over the drive. If your drive fails to boot after this it's a sign that it's getting better. Persevere.

 

[richardm]

Yes, imaging means making a copy of the existing system. Always a good idea. But in your case you may be able to avoid the restore.

I like the sound of that

Take an image of your system and then boot up in to the BIOS setup and see if your RAID options are available through the BIOS. If you are going for RAID 1 (mirroring, for redundancy) you may be able to simply turn it back on.

Yes, back to RAID 1. I'm wondering though, with one blank disk and one with data, will it assume that the disk with the data on is the one to mirror, or not? The current situation seems to be that the disk identifying as Disc 1 has the data, and disc 0 is the redundant one. Edit: I guess it doesn't really matter, since I can recover from the stored copy, but it would be nice if it went seamlessly.

Do you have a disk from Adaptec or the original install disk? You may need that depending on what you find in your BIOS screens.

Yep, got that, luckily enough!

Meanwhile, I'll try Wudang's suggestion, it does sound quite plausible.

 

[e-sabbath]

Image: I hope you can get a copy of Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. It makes a snapshot of your machine on some _other_ hard drive you have attached.

This is important. Because once you have that snapshot, you can take both those hard drives, hit them with hammers, buy a new hard drive, stick it in, restore from the image, and your computer won't know the difference.

Since the RAID card handles things on a hardware level, as long as the drives are currently plugged into the RAID card, Windows won't know if you have a physical drive or an array in what the RAID card tells it is Hard Drive 1.

So, you make the back up, reconfigure the _card_, restore the back up onto the new array which acts like a hard drive, boot up.

In case of issues, you can always put things back just the way they were.

 

[van_dutch]

It's probably going to be easier to just wipe the drives and re-install, after all important data has been saved to something else (ie an external drive). I know it's not the answer you were looking for, but I think it will be simpler. Plus, your system gets wiped which removes any annoying programs, bad registry entries etc etc etc.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It's probably going to be easier to just wipe the drives and re-install, after all important data has been saved to something else (ie an external drive).

I've always wondered about this advice. Do you have some fast way of re-installing all software or do you just not have a lot of "non windows" software installed?

 

[richardm]

Yeah, I'd rather avoid reinstalling.

Well, the RAID BIOS asked me which of the two drives was the source drive, and it's busy building the array as we speak. So we'll see if this ends happily. I've got a ghost back up so I'm not scared.

(much)

 

[Mongrel]

I've always wondered about this advice. Do you have some fast way of re-installing all software or do you just not have a lot of "non windows" software installed?

Some people (and I'm not among them) run very clean machines and back up their important data regularly.
If you've got all your latest device drivers handy, USB key or burned to CD then a Windows reinstall won't take long (45 minutes or so for Windows).

Other people use products like Ghost or True Image to make an image when Windows has been freshly installed and are able to restore the software in a fraction of the time.

Good planning makes everything easier

 

[van_dutch]

I generally try to put a fresh install on every year or so. It used to be more like every 6 months. I have a set list of software I install so I have a plan going in. It only takes maybe 90 minutes including running all of windows updates and reformatting a really big drive (about 60 minutes to reformat and install plus about 30 minutes to get it set up). A quick format of the drive reduces the time. Most of the basic software, web browser, music player, video player, antivirus etc is relatively small and quick to download/install. Some stuff like MatLab or LabView is a bit longer to install but is not needed right away. My machine is not as clean as it used to be but like Mongrel said, if you keep everything handy and know what you need it is quick. There are ways to slipstream certain items into the install which also make it faster as those are installed automatically. Having a plan always helps.

Back to the original question, good luck and I hope it goes way. Losing data is never fun.

 

[richardm]

Right, well, I did all that and it turned out that enabling the RAID controller turned the PC into something totally crashtastic - presumably the reason it was disabled in the first place. So obviously enough I'm recommending that they keep it as two separate drives. (I've tested the drives and they're fine, it just seems to be enabling the controller that screws things up)

Shame really, I'd have liked to have got to the bottom of it but I think they're happy enough to get the machine back and working. To be honest, the way they're using it - it's basically hosting a few shared files that change only rarely - makes RAID seem like a bit of an overkill, especially since they do daily tape backups. They'd probably do better with the extra space. At least, that's what I'll be telling them

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It's nice to have people to check things with

 

[a_unique_person]

Yeah, I'd rather avoid reinstalling.

Well, the RAID BIOS asked me which of the two drives was the source drive, and it's busy building the array as we speak. So we'll see if this ends happily. I've got a ghost back up so I'm not scared.

(much)

Soon you will discover if you picked the right one as the source.

 

[a_unique_person]

Right, well, I did all that and it turned out that enabling the RAID controller turned the PC into something totally crashtastic - presumably the reason it was disabled in the first place. So obviously enough I'm recommending that they keep it as two separate drives. (I've tested the drives and they're fine, it just seems to be enabling the controller that screws things up)

Shame really, I'd have liked to have got to the bottom of it but I think they're happy enough to get the machine back and working. To be honest, the way they're using it - it's basically hosting a few shared files that change only rarely - makes RAID seem like a bit of an overkill, especially since they do daily tape backups. They'd probably do better with the extra space. At least, that's what I'll be telling them

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It's nice to have people to check things with

Drivers .

 

[richardm]

Soon you will discover if you picked the right one as the source.

Yeah, that would have been annoying.

Drivers .

Quite possibly. But there was only one driver available for download, so I was kind of stuck.

Anyway, the machine is back at its home office now, and working fine by all accounts, and with all data intact so it's a happy ending. Pity about it being de-raided but they know about it and will just keep up with the daily backups.

 

[crashman]

The way to do it is to make sure the new drive is formated in the file system you are using such as fat32, ntfs, etc and hook the second drive up and make sure (AT least on promise chipped drives there is a Y in the last box on the first 2 drives. The your raid should rebuild the second card. Some newer chipsets have a windows feature but usually when the PC boots it will say something about the raid and the entry key like alt-f or whatever.

 

[a_unique_person]

Yeah, that would have been annoying.


Quite possibly. But there was only one driver available for download, so I was kind of stuck.

Anyway, the machine is back at its home office now, and working fine by all accounts, and with all data intact so it's a happy ending. Pity about it being de-raided but they know about it and will just keep up with the daily backups.

Using RAID doesn't mean you don't have to do backups.