Please confirm this RAID

[torrentg]

I have 3 HDD.
2 SATA I connected to motherboard. 1 SATA II connected to PCI card.

A SATA I drive on mobo contains Windows.

I'm currently moving everything from the other SATA I to the SATA II drive. I will make a clone of the other SATA I Windows drive to the SATA II also.

This way both SATA I drives will not contain any important data (because of moving and cloning backup.)

When this is done, I want to enable RAID bios on the motherboard, for RAID 0. Then setup the two motherboard SATA I drives for this.

After, I will clone the Windows install to the RAID drives from SATA II drive. Then boot from the RAID, maybe needed a boot repair run first.

Does anyone forsee any problems with this? I think it will be good, but please let me know if there's anything problematic with this approach. I guess I'm hoping for support doing this because I really don't want to install Windows fresh again and am hoping my existing install will still work on the RAID.

I'm not worried about one of the RAID drives going faulty and ruining the RAID. In that case, I wouldn't mind clean reinstalling Windows. So RAID 0 is cool for me.

 

[Antman]

You need to do the clone first, then move the data to the clone.

Otherwise, a solid plan.

 

[torrentg]

Thanks! Well, I have two partitions on the SATA II. After moving and cloning, all data will be on 2nd partition. The Windows clone will be on first.

Then make RAID. Then clone SATA II Windows partition to RAID. Boot into RAID.

So when I get back into Windows, everything else I need will be there waiting for me on 2nd SATA II partition.

One question though. After making RAID in bios, I will have a boot choice for this in HDD and can set it as first boot device...correct?

 

[Antman]

Unless I am mistaken, "making the RAID" will destroy all data on the volume.

You can set the RAID vol as your primaty HDD boot device, but you need to boot to something else to clone the Windows install to the RAID vol.

 

[torrentg]

Yep. I know about destroying the data.

Here's my current situation:

SATA II has a partition with my Windows, cloned over. Sata II also has another partition with all data. This drive contains every last bit of data I need.

The other two HDD I intend on making RAID 0 to are completely ready to do so. Nothing on them is needed any longer.

So I go into the SATA RAID boot screen and for some strange reason, it will now only allow me to create a RAID 1 mirror with the drives.

Before I started this, when I checked, it had an option for RAID 0 too and even explained the differences of them, although I knew. RAID 0 is nowhere to be seen now.

Does anyone know why that choice has disappeared? In the meantime, I'm going to play with bios settings to see if I can get it back. If not, I still can boot to one of the SATA I drives because obviously, I haven't created the RAID yet.

Thanks! And yes, after RAID is made, I will use Clonezilla to place Windows backup partition to the RAID.

 

[Antman]

That is odd. Are you sure you saw the RAID0 option in the BIOS instead of the VIA app?

Don't know why that would happen.

Can you boot to Windows without those drives, and if so, run the VIA app and RAID0 them before the install?

 

[torrentg]

Alright. Success with creating the RAID 0.

I was overlooking what I saw before. It was kind of hidden behind the setting for RAID 1. Now my problem is that Clonezilla will not see the RAID so I can put the Windows partition clone to it.

Does anyone know which clone software will see my RAID? I will be busy researching myself, but if anyone knows off the top of their head, cool.

Thanks so far for everything, Antman.

 

[torrentg]

Is this problem because I have to create a partition first somehow on the Raid now? I am only cloning partitions, not full HDD.

What should I use, if so? The Win 7 DVD?

Edit:

lol, I made pretend I wanted clean install with Win7 DVD. It created two partitions on the RAID. The 100 mb one and the rest of the space in another. I am cloning my Windows partition to the one with rest of space on the RAID right now.

Then I will have to figure how to set this Windows partition on the RAID active. Boot to it and then delete the 100 mb partition and merge. I'm thinking GParted.

 

[Antman]

I would keep the 100MB partition. It is small enough and too handy.

 

[torrentg]

Yeah, you're probably right. I could probably do a boot repair and have it automatically fix that 100 mb partition to boot into what I just cloned over to the other partition on same drive.

I'm burning GParted right now, so I'll have to decide.

When I'm done with everything, I'll tell how it went.