I don't know where your "dynamic disk" thought comes from - it is not part of what kawininjazx said. There are ways to copy everything from a single HDD to a RAID1 array. However, there IS a real problem with your plan.
There is no such thing as a "standard" RAID system. Hence, no OS comes with any "built-in" way to handle a RAID array. Windows is like this - it needs to have a software device driver installed for the specific RAID system in use. The dilemma is that Windows normally loads device drivers from the HDD it has just booted from AFTER it has booted up. BUT if you want to BOOT from the RAID1 array, Windows by itself does not know how, and can't do that!
There is a perfectly good solution to this dilemma, but it must be done at the very beginning when you first install Windows as your OS on your hard drive. When starting the installation, the process will prompt you to press the "F6" key if you wish to add additional special drivers to this version of Windows. If you do that, you can then add such drivers (including, for example, a RAID driver for your system) from a thumb drive or floppy disk and these are incorporated into this customized version of Windows at a low level so that it DOES know how to read the RAID array and boot from it. However, I strongly suspect that you did NOT do this for the Windows you have already installed on your single HDD. So, merely making a perfect copy of what you already have there (a clone) will still leave you unable to BOOT from that RAID1 array.
There is a process you can follow to get there, but it takes time and several steps.
1. Buy or borrow a third HDD and use it to make a clone copy of your current HDD. Check to make sure it has everything on it. Disconnect this and set aside as your backup before you start.
2. Look up in your mobo manual how to find the RAID drivers for your mobo (I am assuming you plan to use the mobo's "built-in" RAID system) and copy them to appropriate media, probably a thumb drive.
3. Get out your original Windows 8.1 Install CD. You are going to have to do a fresh Install of Windows on your machine. Check with Microsoft how you can use the same CD to re-install Windows a second time on the same machine.
4. Find and read the material in your mobo manual on how to establish a RAID1 array on your system. Some systems allow you to add an empty HDD to an existing HDD and copy all the stuff to the second to create a RAID1 array full of useful data. However, that would do you no good - you still could not boot from it! If you can find the RAID user's manual (often a file on the accessories CD that come with your system), read that. Go ahead and establish the RAID1 array with no data on it.
5. Install Win 8.1. Watch for the prompt to press F6 and do that. If you wait too long, it will skip on by and you'll have to start over. Add the RAID driver(s) as instructed, then proceed with the rest of the Install. Once you have Win 8.1 fully installed and booting from that new RAID1 array, make sure you update it fully.
6. Now you have to re-install all your applications software - MS Office or whatever, your browser(s), graphics and photo editors, games, etc., etc. You cannot just copy from the backup HDD you have. You must Install so that the new Windows Registry files get the right info on all these apps.
7. NOW you get to re-connect the backup HDD and copy all your old data files to the new RAID1 array. This finally gets you where you wanted to be - running Win 8.1 off a RAID1 array with all your old data intact. When you're SURE you have copied all your old data, you can wipe the third HDD clean if you want.
That gets what you wanted, but it is a bit long. Before proceeding with any of this, however, re-think: why do you believe that RAID1 is the solution to your needs? Anyone in this field will tell you that RAID1 IS NOT A BACKUP SYSTEM!! There are so many ways that you can lose data that RAID1 can NOT protect from! If your real worry is protection against losing your data, read up on how to do a real backup system that provides such protection. Such systems usually involve periodic backups of all files changed recently, keeping older backups in case a recent backup is missing something or has errors, and storing all these backups off-line (so no electrical glitches can harm them) and in a DIFFERENT location that is safe.
I am using a RAID1 system in what I consider an ideal application for this technology. It is the Point-of-Sale computer in a retail store our family runs. What I really need from it is this: if ever there is a failure of one HDD at ANY time, the system will still keep running smoothly so that the store operations can continue without interruption. It also will send out a warning that the problem has happened. Alerted by that, I can then go into the system AFTER the store has closed for the day and repair the damage so that the full RAID1 function is restored. BUT this is NOT the backup system! I run a completely separate system for making frequent backups and copying them to a separate location so that I can recover from data loss.
) Since I'm doing this for an acquintance of me, I don't want to re-install his entire system. The situation is, he has a one-person company, and in this country you have to set up 'VAT/sales tax lists' which you need to deliver to the government each year. You have a real problem when those lists are gone. So he wanted to have those lists along with other stuff live backed-up. Since he bought an identical hard drive, I thought I would be nice to RAID1 his entire system right away, but that was just a very wrong thought I see. Would it be a good idea to create a separate partition which is backed-up regularly to the other disk? Is this possible without too much effort?
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