PCA Forums

Can I ghost my Drive C and then setup Raid 0 and then ghost the saved image onto my raid setup ?

YUP! That's how I transfer partitions to/from RAID arrays to/from single drives.

Ghost sees a RAID array as a normal drive. RAID is done in hardware and is invisible to the operation system.

Thanks FP, I was hoping I wouldn't have to reinstall XP. This way I won't have to reactivate.

Well XP may have a problem with this (this is not an issue with Win9x).

QUESTION - is this a raid card you're adding to an existing system, or using the same controller you are now and just adding a 2nd drive?

If you're adding a different RAID controller you should install the drivers for it first (even though no hard drives are connected to it) before moving the partition.

Depending on a LOT of factors, XP may not be able to find the boot partition after you've moved the data to the raid array.

XP (and 2K) don't use DOS drive letters to find the drive, they use the drive's hardware address. By moving the drive to a different controller, the drive's address will usually change.

If it's the same controller you're using now it probably won't be an issue. Also XP is a LOT better about this than 2K - as long as you have drivers installed XP may be smart enough to find the partition.

Just try it and see what happens. If you get a blue screen error saying something like "BOOT PARTITION NOT FOUND" you'll have to boot from the XP CD and run the repair option (NOTE: You'll need the RAID controller driver on a floppy to do this).

I'm a little vague on XP repair procedure, but it should be similar to Win2K. In 2K the first thing the intaller asks when you boot from the CD is to press the F6 key if you need to install a SCSI or other controller driver. Then it'll prompt you for the driver floppy. Then 2K asks if you wan to do an install or a Repair. You choose Repair and perform a "Repair boot sectors".

I would recommend you backup the ghost image to a spare drive or CDs if you're using the existing drive as part of the array. This way if it doesn't work you can restore it if the system is mission critical, and then worry about doing a clean install later.

Good luck!

The HighPoint drivers were already installed. Below is the "Before" and "After" setup.


EPOX 8K3A+

Before:
IDE3 WD 40 gig ATA100 7200rpm boot drive
IDE4 WD 40gig ATA100 7200rpm(master) & WD 30gig ATA100 7200rpm(slave) Storage drives
IDE2 Plextor 40x12x40x CDRW
IDE1 Pioneer 16x DVD


After:
IDE3 WD 40 gig ATA100 7200rpm (in RAID0)
IDE4 WD 40gig ATA100 7200rpm (in RAID0)
IDE2 Plextor 40x12x40x CDRW(master) & WD 30gig ATA100 7200rpm(slave)
IDE1 Pioneer 16x DVD