Greetings,
Over a year ago, I purchased my very first desktop after having used laptops exclusively and being online since 1986. I configured it for speed.
I have an 80 GB SSD "C" drive and two identical 1-TB HDDs which I thought was my "D" drive. One of the options was for a RAID1 configuration which I selected. All this time, I thought I was kind of 'protected' with the mirrored drives. Somehow I discovered that my BIOS is set to IDE instead of to RAID(XHD) <--which is necessary for RAID. (Not that I really understand all this - tapping Ctrl-i during POST did not take me to the Intel Matrix Storage utility)....and that I do NOT have a functioning RAID1 setup.
Speaking with customer service, I learned that changing over to a RAID1 configuration at this time will eradicate ALL data on the 1-TB drives. Start over again? I don't think so.
I also discovered that one of the connections was dangling so that Computer Management in Win 7 had no idea there is a second data drive present! I re-connected it, restarted, and now I see that "Disk 1" is unallocated. Judging by the size (it's identical to Disk 2, my D drive), I suppose this is my other 1 TB drive now partially visible. (1) How to I "allocate" it so the drive is one I can use?
I also now see that my 80 GB SSD has 101MB unallocated! (2) Is that much of the SSD, disk 0, supposed to be unallocated? (3) can I get that 101 MB into action without losing any data? (my OS and other data is on this drive)
I was thinking that I'd just "copy" my "D" to the new "E" or "J" or "M" (whatever I name it; (4) might it take-over the "D" designation? is this a concern?) drive manually yo have a sort of mirrored backup. I am now thinking that that's not a good solution because the programs installed on "D" know where they are supposed to reside and changing the drive letter will confuse the software...and maybe even break diestinations "C" might point to. Then I wondered (5) is there a way to make a backup of my entire system, everything, all data, all programs, all settings....then do the RAID 1 configuration (which wipes all data), then "restore" the backup or mirror of my system "D" drive (data drive) without having to re-install all the configured software and everything?
I could use some guidance here.
TIA
drcarl
Over a year ago, I purchased my very first desktop after having used laptops exclusively and being online since 1986. I configured it for speed.
I have an 80 GB SSD "C" drive and two identical 1-TB HDDs which I thought was my "D" drive. One of the options was for a RAID1 configuration which I selected. All this time, I thought I was kind of 'protected' with the mirrored drives. Somehow I discovered that my BIOS is set to IDE instead of to RAID(XHD) <--which is necessary for RAID. (Not that I really understand all this - tapping Ctrl-i during POST did not take me to the Intel Matrix Storage utility)....and that I do NOT have a functioning RAID1 setup.
Speaking with customer service, I learned that changing over to a RAID1 configuration at this time will eradicate ALL data on the 1-TB drives. Start over again? I don't think so.
I also discovered that one of the connections was dangling so that Computer Management in Win 7 had no idea there is a second data drive present! I re-connected it, restarted, and now I see that "Disk 1" is unallocated. Judging by the size (it's identical to Disk 2, my D drive), I suppose this is my other 1 TB drive now partially visible. (1) How to I "allocate" it so the drive is one I can use?
I also now see that my 80 GB SSD has 101MB unallocated! (2) Is that much of the SSD, disk 0, supposed to be unallocated? (3) can I get that 101 MB into action without losing any data? (my OS and other data is on this drive)
I was thinking that I'd just "copy" my "D" to the new "E" or "J" or "M" (whatever I name it; (4) might it take-over the "D" designation? is this a concern?) drive manually yo have a sort of mirrored backup. I am now thinking that that's not a good solution because the programs installed on "D" know where they are supposed to reside and changing the drive letter will confuse the software...and maybe even break diestinations "C" might point to. Then I wondered (5) is there a way to make a backup of my entire system, everything, all data, all programs, all settings....then do the RAID 1 configuration (which wipes all data), then "restore" the backup or mirror of my system "D" drive (data drive) without having to re-install all the configured software and everything?
I could use some guidance here.
TIA
drcarl