moving from AHCI mode to RAID 1 without WIN7 reinstall - possible?

Hi,

Is it possible to move from AHCI mode to RAID 1 without fully reinstalling windows 7? I'm talking about solution that I will take image backup of 2xHDDs (with ex. Acronis), initialize the RAID1 and will put the image on boot HDD into it? I saw few solution like that for ICH8/9 chipset (I'm using ICHM).

Maybe is faster to reinstall win7 from scratch and use windows easy transfer etc?

What do you think, which solution is fastest and will save time needed for reinstalling all software?

thanks,
Maciejka

 

So you're talking about moving two drives into one? That's not gonna happen. What you might be able to do is take an image of the first drive, blast it to the new RAID, and then expand it, but you won't be able to just "stick together" two different filesystems. Unless I'm understanding you wrong.

 

Of course it's not gonna happen. To clarify. I will backup 2 drives but I need to put back image of the boot partition/drive only. A second drive I will put to the partition I will create after my OS will run on RAID 1.

 

That should be fairly easily possible. All you need to do is use Acronis or gparted, make an image of the current boot drive on an external drive, create the RAID1, and then write that image you created to the newly created array (assuming that it's a BIOS based RAID1 and not software).

 

Thanks for answer.

I had the same feelings the system is booting up. I can see the first win logo/icon then restarting (i have v. fast pc so I cannot see what the error is on the bluescreen). It is happenig after, let's say, 5-10 after restart.


PS.
yes. we are talking about hardware RAID

 

If you're talking about the Intel RAID chipsets, the Matrix Storage Manager does have the ability to create a RAID1 volume from within Windows. Even if it is the hard drive that the system partition is on.

 

Yep, that's what I would expect. You should be able to get this working if you buy the Universal Restore add-on for your Acronis software, which is required if you want to transfer an image to dissimilar hardware (and going from AHCI to RAID does constitute dissimilar hardware). This will modify the restored image so as to prompt Windows to re-initialize its HAL upon reboot.

 

Yes you can. If you DON'T have AHCI mode on before hand though you must do a clean install. But moving from just plain AHCI to Raid 1 should be doable.

 

You was right. PlusPack for Acronis 2010 Home solved the problem, and I'm typing from my win7 on Raid1.

many thanks for your and other guys help.

cheers