HELP: Cloning onto a new SSD RAID 0

Hello, I am sort of new to some tech stuff so forgive my ignorance. I have an Alienware M17x R4 currently with two separate 1TB disk drives in a RAID 0 array but I got two 512GB Samsung 850 PRO SSDs that I would like to install in a RAID 0 array. I would prefer to do this by cloning my current setup (only using around 500GB of my 2TB) onto an External and then installing the SSDs and configuring them for RAID 0 then moving the clone from the external to the RAIDed SSDs. How could I do this? I was reading up on http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows but that sort of says you need to replace the optical drive to do it successfully and says nothing about RAID 0. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Some additional information:
• I am on Windows 10
• I have unlocked A11 BIOS
• I have a NVIDIA 980M installed with modded drivers (which I really do not want to have to go through again)

 

Put the SSD's in an do a fresh install. windows 10 is picky for stupid things like this. Also, i do not know how you plan to do this, but you would need to be able to hold both raid 0's on the same system, at the same time.

 

Yeah, now that I really think about it I realize it was a foolish idea with the limited hardware of a laptop and the requirement of a RAID setup. My goal was just to be able to make it so I don't have to go through any of the hassle with Windows 10 and my 980M. Then going back through and re-downloading and setting it all up. Is there an easy way to back up the program files such as the NVIDIA drivers to make that part simple?

 

Out of curiosity, are you using your 980m in optimus mode?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

No I have the integrated graphics card disabled and I am in dedicated mode.

 

Hi, Tom

I'm going to be doing something similar in the next while (though I'll be switching from a non-raid configuration to a raid configuration). I also have an R4.

Now, the following steps are hypothetical (as I'm writing them in advance, obviously) but they may give you something to go on in terms of steps.

1. You need a program to make a disk image. I use Acronis ( http://www.acronis.com/en-us/). There may be other cheaper/free solutions, but Acronis is pretty solid. Probably have a sale on now anyway.
2. Run the program from windows and use it to make an image of the current raid array partitions (make sure to get the tiny hidden partitions also). It will make a... .tib file (if I remember) that you can store on an external drive (do so).
3. Use the same program to make a bootable usb key (or optical disk). It'll copy basic tools to the disc including a super-stripped-down version of Acronis.
4. Power down. Unplug the external. Swap drives.
5. Power up, check in Bios to make sure that you're still specifying your drives as a raid configuration (this is the step I remember the least about in terms of what you should be seeing).
-- found a guide here: http://www.alienowners.com/threads/setting-up-a-raid-on-most-alienware-systems-how-to.1952/
6. Connect your external drive again.
7. Boot from the bootable disk/key (spam the key for boot options if necessary).
8. Follow the on-screen prompts to clone the tib file you created to the new drives (make sure that your new drives are registering as a proper raid of course).

That should be about the shape of it...

 

Hello, Schurke.
Sorry for the late response but after reading about it a fresh install made the most sense because I was switching from Disk Drives to SSD's and I didn't want any problems cloning over the settings and storage for HDDs. It went well, took me a while to figure out how to get the RAID 0 set up. In the BIOS there is a setting for SATA and you can set it to RAID but it wont configure a RAID drive directly from there, you have to boot into the Intel Rapid Storage Option ROM (It should be <ctrl><i> when you boot) and arrange it in there. To get it to that point I had to reset all my BIOS settings to default though because I had tinkered with my BIOS for my graphics card.

 

Thanks, Tom - I'll remember (ctrl+i) for when I get around to reworking things. Glad to hear you got it sorted!