Basic advice on imaging a RAID hard disk

Hi, I'm looking to rescue data off a two disk RAID 0 array (the motherboard failed years ago, it was a Clevo clone notebook) - and for safety, I need to take images of each drive and work with them in the Raid Reconstructor software (rather than using the original drives).

I know that various pieces of software can take images, but what general precautions should I take?

I've ordered a PATA-IDE Usb enclosure and am planning to put each drive in it, then connect it to my laptop running Windows 7. I'm concerned that Windows/the enclosure could format or damage the disk during that process. Is there any ground work I need to do in Disk Management to prevent this?

Any advice welcome.