Going from regular IDE boot drive to RAID

[steve]

I keep thinking about going RAID with two SATA drives. The speed boost is impressive, but I'd like to do it without having to reinstall everything. So has anyone used Partition Magic or Ghost or whatever, to copy the data from an existing IDE boot drive to a RAID 0 SATA setup, which would then become the boot drive? If so, how do you do it? Do you copy it to one drive normally, then "build" the RAID with the BIOS utility?

I'd think for Drive Image or Partition Magic to work, they'd need a RAID driver, but I'm not sure if Windows boots one (for Partition Magic) or Drive Image has one in its DOS program that does the drive copying (I happen to have both of those programs, so that's why I'm using them for this example).

Any examples would be helpful.

[Steve Canyon]

I wouldn't try it without backing up all my data first. And if you're going to do that, you might as well just install from scratch.

Whenever I have made and restored an image, it comes back onto the drive with the exact same partition size as it had on its original partition, even if it is now living on a bigger disk.

I suppose if you could make the image the correct size for the RAID 0 array, you might find a way to make it work. Or maybe if the tools you mention allow you to manipulate partition sizes, you could just install the image onto the array, then resize it.

[Case]

I keep thinking about going RAID with two SATA drives. The speed boost is impressive, but I'd like to do it without having to reinstall everything. So has anyone used Partition Magic or Ghost or whatever, to copy the data from an existing IDE boot drive to a RAID 0 SATA setup, which would then become the boot drive? If so, how do you do it? Do you copy it to one drive normally, then "build" the RAID with the BIOS utility?

I'd think for Drive Image or Partition Magic to work, they'd need a RAID driver, but I'm not sure if Windows boots one (for Partition Magic) or Drive Image has one in its DOS program that does the drive copying (I happen to have both of those programs, so that's why I'm using them for this example).

Any examples would be helpful.

I do this all the time for product testing. We use the pro version of Drive Image (Deploy Center), so Drive Image itself should work fine.

Here are some rules of thumb:

1. Going from a smaller to a bigger partition works great. The partition gets sized up by default to the biggest possible, but you can specify. I've restored 40GB partitions to 250GB drives and gotten full 250GB partitions. (Note: I've only tested this with NTFS).

2. Going from bigger to smaller works only when two conditions are fulfulled:

a) The data isn't too large for the drive
b} The source drive is less than 137GB.

If the source drive is bigger than 137GB, the version of Deplay Center we use can't relocate certain sizing data properly. I haven't tried the more recent version.

3. If you're going TO a RAID array from a non-RAID array, first install the RAID drivers on the non-RAID system to minimize problems. Otherwise, you may find yourself unable to boot.

4. As noted above, back up valuable data. If possible, keep the original drive with the original parition, so you can return to it if need be.

[steve]

3. If you're going TO a RAID array from a non-RAID array, first install the RAID drivers on the non-RAID system to minimize problems. Otherwise, you may find yourself unable to boot.

Okay, fair enough. Installing the drivers first is a good thing to remember.

But how does Drive Image see the RAID drive? The version I have boots up DR DOS to do the copy. Does it have drivers for the RAID? Or is the RAID set up via the BIOS after you copy to one of the new drives?

4. As noted above, back up valuable data. If possible, keep the original drive with the original parition, so you can return to it if need be.

Oh, definitely. I'd keep the old drive until the RAID system was running for a few days.

I've done this a bunch of times from IDE to IDE using Partition Magic and/or Drive Image. I think the version of the latter I have may not be current, which could be a problem.

[Case]

But how does Drive Image see the RAID drive? The version I have boots up DR DOS to do the copy. Does it have drivers for the RAID? Or is the RAID set up via the BIOS after you copy to one of the new drives?

You turn on BIOS ROM support in your system BIOS. You then define the array in the RAID setup screen during the boot process. The DOS extender used by Drive Image 6.0 or later (I don't know about earlier versions) sees it fine -- and even understands NTFS. Drive Image itself sees the array just fine as a big, unpartitioned drive, because that's how the RAID BIOS reports it.

[steve]

You turn on BIOS ROM support in your system BIOS. You then define the array in the RAID setup screen during the boot process. The DOS extender used by Drive Image 6.0 or later (I don't know about earlier versions) sees it fine -- and even understands NTFS. Drive Image itself sees the array just fine as a big, unpartitioned drive, because that's how the RAID BIOS reports it.

Ah, that's groovy. Sounds relatively painless (hah!).

Thanks.