Dangerous RAID mission (For me anyway)

[tromba]

I have a new dangerous RAID mission and I’m afraid to begin. I bought two SATA 250's and a Promise controller back in August then got swamped with work and plans got set aside. That was fine since I didn't know how to proceed anyway. I'm now going to THINK about trying. I did think about it, and I have no idea how to proceed. As usual my setup doesn't fall in the "normal" category described in manuals, and although I've read a lot here and done searches, I'm still confused as the best way to start this. (General note: daily backups of just data and no backups of drive C)

Current:
As you can see, I've been a separate drive for separate functions guy in the past, but what I want on the RAID-1 is the C drive (OS), the E Drive (all programs) and the G drive (all data). And because there's pleny of space on a 250, the current D drive can go there also. In order to do this, looks like I have to give up that philosophy of separating drives and functions, but I'm now more interested in backup and security.
120 Gig internal
Drive C 15 gig (only OS)
Drive D 97 Gig (Just misc storage could be anywhere)
18 Gig External SCSI
Drive E (ALL programs installed here -- not much in C:/Program Files)
18 Gig external SCSI
Drive F 9 gig (some backups)
Drive H 9 gig (misc storge)
36 gig external SCSI
Drive G (ALL Program DATA here)
Drive I (misc storage)
36 Gig Exteral SCSI
Drive X: Back up
300 Gig internal
Drive M Mp3's

Current sitting in a box in the closet:
2 WD Caviar 250 SATA
1 Promise FastTrak 2200/2300 Serial ATA Card

GOAL:
Get the two 250's in RAID-1
One 250,partitioned and containing drives C, D, E, G
Others are misc storage and aren't that important, don't need RAID and can be on any free space in the system.

I've been doing installs and partitions for years, and could probably get the 250 set up like I want, but have no clue how to get the 2nd one RAID-1. Most help files start about starting from scratch with an install (I'm not) or setting up an existing drive to RAID (and I’m moving parts of 3 different drives)

Choices as I see them based on my experience doing stuff that I have no clue about:

1. Ignore RAID, install card and one drive, partion and image current C, D, E and G to that drive, remove the old 120, reboot THEN try to set up the 2nd drive and the RAID (and probably during which all data gets corrupted destroyed on the entire system.)

2. Install card and both drives, get totally confused, wipe out all data on current drives, and don't even have an operating computer, check with Knoppix and find there's no data anywhere on any drive.

Neither of these is appealing to me..... Any suggestions? What IS the best proceedure to make this work (if there IS one)?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Am I correct in that you want to move your existing Windows installation over to the RAID-1? i.e. you don't want to have to reinstall Windows and all applications?

Also, am I correct in that you have some sort of imaging program that can copy a partition from drive to drive, intact? (Partition Magic, Ghost, Acronis True Image, Boot It Next Gen, etc.)

Also, do you have a backup of all important data so that you could start over if a mistake is made?

If the answer to all of those questions is yes, then there is a procedure that will work. Check the "Hard Disks" forum, and look at my FAQ/Sticky at the top: Changing Storage Controllers without Reinstalling Windows.

 

[tromba]

Am I correct in that you want to move your existing Windows installation over to the RAID-1? i.e. you don't want to have to reinstall Windows and all applications?

Absolutely

Also, am I correct in that you have some sort of imaging program that can copy a partition from drive to drive, intact?

Yep.

Also, do you have a backup of all important data so that you could start over if a mistake is made?

Yes, but what I lack is the time to reinstall all the junk I've got on the machine, (most of which I probably don't use anyway!!)

If the answer to all of those questions is yes, then there is a procedure that will work.

I can't respond more.... I'm on my way to that Sticky!!

 

[tromba]

That is one excellent post!!!!!

Unless I missed something, I still have one remaining question. I decided to ask it here since my original post and all of what I have is here.

If your new controller is a RAID controller and your intention is to create a new RAID array for your Windows installation, power on the system, go into the RAID BIOS Utility and create the RAID array on the new drives according to the manufacturer's directions.

What I haven't found is how to work with the partitions doing this. I think following your instructions to get the C partition set on the new controller would work great.

Perhaps this is more of a RAID setup question, but I haven't found this in the manual either. I assume I partition the new drive to have, say, a 20 Gig partition to move my old C: partition to. I can then run the stuff in that Sticky and be able to boot. Next I assume I'd partition the new drive for the other four partitions I want to move, image and move them (or probably I could just copy them -- it's installed program files and data files).

Or maybe not worry about any paritition until it's up and running, then use Partition magic to resize the new drive and add the other partitions.

The question is whether I do anything to the 2nd SATA drive (the RAID-1) like partition/format, etc. or whether after I get the new controller and boot partition set up I then do it.

In other words does the RAID setup program just tell the controller to mirror whatever is on the 1st drive, or do I have to do the partitions and that kind of thing, and if so, where in the process in the sticky?

 

[mcdougal]

I want to say anything else. Will be good to store swap on different phisical disk /small raptor/ and if you use torrent program better save downloaded files on another phisical HDD.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

What I haven't found is how to work with the partitions doing this. I think following your instructions to get the C partition set on the new controller would work great.

Perhaps this is more of a RAID setup question, but I haven't found this in the manual either. I assume I partition the new drive to have, say, a 20 Gig partition to move my old C: partition to. I can then run the stuff in that Sticky and be able to boot. Next I assume I'd partition the new drive for the other four partitions I want to move, image and move them (or probably I could just copy them -- it's installed program files and data files).

Or maybe not worry about any paritition until it's up and running, then use Partition magic to resize the new drive and add the other partitions.

The question is whether I do anything to the 2nd SATA drive (the RAID-1) like partition/format, etc. or whether after I get the new controller and boot partition set up I then do it.

In other words does the RAID setup program just tell the controller to mirror whatever is on the 1st drive, or do I have to do the partitions and that kind of thing, and if so, where in the process in the sticky?

OK, the piece you're missing how the RAID level and the file system level interact. Partitions, file systems (like NTFS or FAT32) and files are all defined at the file system level. You start with a blank drive, and create partitions, file systems, and files.

The RAID level is below that. The RAID is defined before any of that stuff. Once the RAID is defined, the computer sees one blank hard drive, regardless of how many physical drives are used to create the RAID.

So, what you're going to do is put both 250GB hard drives into the machine, connected to the RAID controller. You'll define a RAID-1 array in the RAID controller BIOS (no software installation necessary). Once the RAID-1 array is defined, when you subsequently start a partition copy program like Partition Magic, PM will see one 250GB drive.

Think of the RAID array as a virtual device. The 250GB drive that is seen by the computer is a virtual drive -- whatever real way that the 250GB of storage is implemented is of no concern to the programs.

In my procedure in the other forum, steps 13 and 14 are where you'll actually install your new 250GB drives and define the RAID array.

 

[tromba]

The RAID level is below that. The RAID is defined before any of that stuff. Once the RAID is defined, the computer sees one blank hard drive, regardless of how many physical drives are used to create the RAID.

So once the RAID is defined with the RAID controller BIOS, I don't worry about it and treat the ONE drive just the same as if it WERE the only one drive -- partition, etc. and I never myself do ANYTHING to the mirror drive. Now this seems much simplier than I thought it would be.

In my procedure in the other forum, steps 13 and 14 are where you'll actually install your new 250GB drives and define the RAID array.

SomeJoe777 -- you've been a great help, both here and the Sticky in the other forum. Thanks for your help.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

So once the RAID is defined with the RAID controller BIOS, I don't worry about it and treat the ONE drive just the same as if it WERE the only one drive -- partition, etc. and I never myself do ANYTHING to the mirror drive. Now this seems much simplier than I thought it would be.

Yes, exactly.

The only time you'll ever have to touch the RAID again is if one of the drives fails. The RAID controller at that point will automatically just start using the good drive (which still has all your data on it) and will warn you that the array is no longer redundant on every startup. You can at that time shut down, replace the failed drive, and restart. The RAID controller will (in the background) copy all data from the good drive to the new drive until they're in sync again, and that re-establishes the redundancy.

 

[tromba]

I got the controller in and Windows drivers and ran out of time. However, I DID notice that when I boot the computer there is NO option to go to the RAID controller like I expected (like my SCSI controller, press CTRL-A)

It goes right into Windows with no mention of the controller. There are no drives attached right now, don't know if that'll make a difference.

This is a Promise card, and there IS a webPAM configuration manager that runs within Windows in a browser. I guess that'll work, but I'd feel better if it it was done before Windows loaded

(this is a Gateway computer, and I had to get an unsupported experimental BIOS from Gateway just to get the SCSI stuff to show up on boot. I'd never update the BIOS for that reason -- the SCSI would probably go away. It took a LONG time to even get someone at Gateway support to even understand what was supposed to happen at boot, and to get past the "it's not supported eventhough we sell it on our website" mentality)

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I got the controller in and Windows drivers and ran out of time. However, I DID notice that when I boot the computer there is NO option to go to the RAID controller like I expected (like my SCSI controller, press CTRL-A)

It goes right into Windows with no mention of the controller. There are no drives attached right now, don't know if that'll make a difference.

This is a Promise card, and there IS a webPAM configuration manager that runs within Windows in a browser. I guess that'll work, but I'd feel better if it it was done before Windows loaded

(this is a Gateway computer, and I had to get an unsupported experimental BIOS from Gateway just to get the SCSI stuff to show up on boot. I'd never update the BIOS for that reason -- the SCSI would probably go away. It took a LONG time to even get someone at Gateway support to even understand what was supposed to happen at boot, and to get past the "it's not supported eventhough we sell it on our website" mentality)

This is probably going to be a major problem. If the BIOS won't initialize the option ROM on the Promise card, there's no way to boot off the RAID.

On normal motherboards, the Promise card will definitely show an option ROM initialization screen, with a "Press Ctrl-F for array manager" message. If you're not seeing that, you may have to call Gateway again and see if they have another BIOS.

 

[tromba]

OK, I've made some progress. I CAN see the Promise card at boot, and Do have it configured for RAID-1

IF the SATA's on the Promise card are powered, the machine won't boot because BIOS think's THAT's the hard drive in the boot priority (only hard drive, CD and floppy are the choices, even though there is also a SCSI card in the system).

The only way to boot is to unpower the SATA drives. So how do I make an image from the IDE to the SATA when they can't both be on at the same time.... I guess that leads to DOS boot, but I haven't been able to make that work either. I've tried one program that lists Hard Drive 0, 1, 2, 3 and without KNOWING what the software considers to BE Hard Drive 0, I'm not about to image to anything. ALso the SATA isn't formatted yet either, and I'm sure that's also problematic.

Any suggestions?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Evidently what the guys at Gateway have done is hack their BIOS so that anything that looks like a mass storage controller in the PCI slots that has the capability to boot automatically has boot priority.

The only thing I can think of in this situation is to temporarily move the Promise card and your current boot drive to another machine to image the Windows installation to the RAID-1. After it's imaged, move the card and drives back to the Gateway and cross your fingers.