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Raid Question

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11 replies

by trektek

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I have just aquired a second hard drive and am wondering about a software raid 0 configuration. Can I just launch the software and it will do its work. Or will it destroy all my data and I will have to re-install WinXP? Any help would be much appreciated.

11 replies

by captbilly1eye

You will need to save all of your HD's data first and be able to do a Restore later.
When you configure your drives for striping (RAID 0), all data will be lost. Yes, you will need to re-install XP and with that in mind, make the proper preparations ahead of time so that you can re-authenticate your copy afterward.

by churdoo

... the software "raid" functionality built into XP disk mangler? And you said RAID 0 so you're talking about making one large disk out of multiple disks with no redundancy, is that your intention?

If so, the software RAID built into Winders isn't a true striped RAID 0, I think they call it spanning, and it won't gain you any performance.

CaptBilly was talking about a true striped solution and to that he was correct, but the software spanning built into Winders would simply make one large volume SPANNING, not STRIPING multiple disks, and that would not be a destructive process, i.e. would not destroy your existing volume, but of course you should have a backup anyway, just in case.

However, I don't recall if Winders lets you span the system volume, and I don't have an environment available for me to test it, perhaps someone else familiar can respond.

by trektek

No, I am not talking about the raid functionality built into xp. I found a raid utility in with my motherboard drivers disk(nvidia). I am hoping that this will give me a true striped array and not a spanned volume. Is there another way of doing this by software that will no destroy my existing data? From the information I have gotten so far from these posts, I would have to assume no. Therefore I don't think I will attempt it at this time. thanks for all your help. It was much appreciated and saved me time and headache. Thanks to CaptBilly also.

by captbilly1eye

As I stated previously, the answer is no. If you are attempting to create a RAID 0 configuration, a striped array, it requires reformatting and therefore all data will be lost.

by churdoo

CaptBilly can have mine if necessary.

by trektek

I am new to posting and I apologize if I have offended anybody. I didn't (and don't) know anything about the "thumbs". Please explain. I would be honored to give the "thumbs" to those that deserve them.

by captbilly1eye

It is greatly appreciated if you tag all useful responses as 'Helpful' by opening those posts and clicking the 'Mark Helpful' button at the bottom. That way, people with a similar situation in the future will be able to quickly see what ultimately helped. Thanks.

by churdoo

Go to CaptBilly's response and click the button that says "mark answer as helpful"

It will show in the thread with a little "thumbs up" icon, and increments the thumbs up counter within the responder's profile.
:-)

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