Advice needed on moving data drive to C:

[jtpryan]

I currently have 2 drives in my system. Drive C: is my boot and XP Pro
drive. F: is my data drive. I would like to move to a RAID 1
configuration with 2 160Gb SATA drives. C: is 8Gb, F: is 18Gb. Both
are SCSI. As for as physically moving the data to one drive my plan is
to Ghost C: to one of the 160's, then copy everything from F: to this
same drive. I don't see a problem there. My issue will come in with
the registry and any .ini files I might have that refer to paths on F:,
which will now be on C: I suppose I could blast the registry and
search and replace all occurrences of F:\ with C:\, but I just know it
can't be that simple. I really, really, don't want to have to
reinstall all my apps, there are a ton of them.

Has anybody done this that can give me a heads up on potential
problems?

-Jim

 

[Mike T.]

I currently have 2 drives in my system. Drive C: is my boot and XP Pro
drive. F: is my data drive. I would like to move to a RAID 1
configuration with 2 160Gb SATA drives. C: is 8Gb, F: is 18Gb. Both
are SCSI. As for as physically moving the data to one drive my plan is
to Ghost C: to one of the 160's, then copy everything from F: to this
same drive. I don't see a problem there. My issue will come in with
the registry and any .ini files I might have that refer to paths on F:,
which will now be on C: I suppose I could blast the registry and
search and replace all occurrences of F:\ with C:\, but I just know it
can't be that simple. I really, really, don't want to have to
reinstall all my apps, there are a ton of them.

Has anybody done this that can give me a heads up on potential
problems?

-Jim

I think there is an easier way. I use a program called acronis true image,
somewhat similar to ghost. It can image entire logical drives and "span"
them across multiple media disks. True Image can also COMPRESS images it
creates. Because of compression, it's likely that you could use True Image
to back up your C and F drives to (three?) DVD+R disks.

Now I don't know if Ghost can compress and span, like True Image can. But
if it has the same capabilities, you could do the same with Ghost. So here
is what I'd do, if I was trying to replace the SCSI disks in your system:

1) Image C: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 1 or 2 DVD+R
disks (depending on compression)
2) Image F: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 2 - 4 DVD+R disks
(depending on compression)
3) Don't remove the SCSI drives from the system yet, but do disable the
SCSI controller in BIOS, or disconnect the SCSI data cables
4) Install the SATA drives, physically. Set your BIOS to RAID 1
5) Boot your True Image or Ghost rescue CD-Rom, restore drives C and F to
the RAID disks.
6) If necessary, go to system management, disk management and change the
logical drive letter of your non-boot drive to F:
7) After confirming that everything is working OK, remove the SCSI drives
from the system.

 

[jtpryan]

I think there is an easier way. I use a program called acronis true image,
somewhat similar to ghost. It can image entire logical drives and "span"
them across multiple media disks. True Image can also COMPRESS images it
creates. Because of compression, it's likely that you could use True Image
to back up your C and F drives to (three?) DVD+R disks.

Now I don't know if Ghost can compress and span, like True Image can. But
if it has the same capabilities, you could do the same with Ghost. So here
is what I'd do, if I was trying to replace the SCSI disks in your system:

1) Image C: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 1 or 2 DVD+R
disks (depending on compression)
2) Image F: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 2 - 4 DVD+R disks
(depending on compression)
3) Don't remove the SCSI drives from the system yet, but do disable the
SCSI controller in BIOS, or disconnect the SCSI data cables
4) Install the SATA drives, physically. Set your BIOS to RAID 1
5) Boot your True Image or Ghost rescue CD-Rom, restore drives C and F to
the RAID disks.
6) If necessary, go to system management, disk management and change the
logical drive letter of your non-boot drive to F:
7) After confirming that everything is working OK, remove the SCSI drives
from the system.

Thank you for the input. But would not the end result be I have 1
drive, 2 partitions (C: F, mirrored? Not the end of the world, I was
just hoping to get away from the "other drive letter" scenario. I
guess it wouldn't be that bad, I could give the different partitions
enough space so I wouldn't have to worry about it. It's just that
having only drive C from an install and drive space perspective
simplifies things.

-Jim

 

[jtpryan]

I think there is an easier way. I use a program called acronis true image,
somewhat similar to ghost. It can image entire logical drives and "span"
them across multiple media disks. True Image can also COMPRESS images it
creates. Because of compression, it's likely that you could use True Image
to back up your C and F drives to (three?) DVD+R disks.

Now I don't know if Ghost can compress and span, like True Image can. But
if it has the same capabilities, you could do the same with Ghost. So here
is what I'd do, if I was trying to replace the SCSI disks in your system:

1) Image C: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 1 or 2 DVD+R
disks (depending on compression)
2) Image F: using True Image or ghost, store the image on 2 - 4 DVD+R disks
(depending on compression)
3) Don't remove the SCSI drives from the system yet, but do disable the
SCSI controller in BIOS, or disconnect the SCSI data cables
4) Install the SATA drives, physically. Set your BIOS to RAID 1
5) Boot your True Image or Ghost rescue CD-Rom, restore drives C and F to
the RAID disks.
6) If necessary, go to system management, disk management and change the
logical drive letter of your non-boot drive to F:
7) After confirming that everything is working OK, remove the SCSI drives
from the system.

Thank you for the input. But would not the end result be I have 1
drive, 2 partitions (C: F, mirrored? Not the end of the world, I was
just hoping to get away from the "other drive letter" scenario. I
guess it wouldn't be that bad, I could give the different partitions
enough space so I wouldn't have to worry about it. It's just that
having only drive C from an install and drive space perspective
simplifies things.

-Jim

 

[Mike T.]

Thank you for the input. But would not the end result be I have 1

drive, 2 partitions (C: F, mirrored? Not the end of the world, I was
just hoping to get away from the "other drive letter" scenario. I
guess it wouldn't be that bad, I could give the different partitions
enough space so I wouldn't have to worry about it. It's just that
having only drive C from an install and drive space perspective
simplifies things.

-Jim

Well the right way to do this would be to reinstall windows and all your
software. The workaround to avoid that would be to re-create the two
logical drives (C and F) somehow. -Dave

 

[Rod Speed]

I currently have 2 drives in my system. Drive C: is my boot and XP
Pro drive. F: is my data drive. I would like to move to a RAID 1
configuration with 2 160Gb SATA drives. C: is 8Gb, F: is 18Gb. Both
are SCSI. As for as physically moving the data to one drive my plan
is to Ghost C: to one of the 160's, then copy everything from F: to
this same drive. I don't see a problem there. My issue will come in
with the registry and any .ini files I might have that refer to paths
on F:, which will now be on C: I suppose I could blast the registry
and search and replace all occurrences of F:\ with C:\, but I just
know it can't be that simple. I really, really, don't want to have to
reinstall all my apps, there are a ton of them.

Has anybody done this that can give me a heads up on potential
problems?

I'd clone the current C: drive to the sata RAID1 array using something
that is RAID1 aware like True Image. Then I'd unplug the SCSI HA
and do a repair install of XP onto the RAID1 array, to get the drivers
properly configured for the RAID1 array.

I'd then put the SCSI HA back and manually copy
whats on the 18G SCSI drive to the RAID1 array.

In theory its better to do a clean install of XP onto the RAID1 array,
but thats rather more work, particularly installing all the apps again
and getting the settings the way you want them again.

Ghost doesnt necessarily understand RAID1 arrays, varys with the
version and 9 and 10 dont clone very well because they cant clone
from the booted CD. They can only clone from Ghost installed on
the C drive and that produces a big mess drive letter wise.

 

[jtpryan]

I'd clone the current C: drive to the sata RAID1 array using something
that is RAID1 aware like True Image. Then I'd unplug the SCSI HA
and do a repair install of XP onto the RAID1 array, to get the drivers
properly configured for the RAID1 array.

I'd then put the SCSI HA back and manually copy
whats on the 18G SCSI drive to the RAID1 array.

In theory its better to do a clean install of XP onto the RAID1 array,
but thats rather more work, particularly installing all the apps again
and getting the settings the way you want them again.

Ghost doesnt necessarily understand RAID1 arrays, varys with the
version and 9 and 10 dont clone very well because they cant clone
from the booted CD. They can only clone from Ghost installed on
the C drive and that produces a big mess drive letter wise.

Actually, what my (sort of) plan was, was to build half my mirror as a
stand alone drive, get it all running properly, back it up or image it,
then mirror it. So the RAID drivers would be afterwards. Make sense?

-Jim

 

[Rod Speed]

Actually, what my (sort of) plan was, was to build half my mirror as a
stand alone drive, get it all running properly, back it up or image
it, then mirror it. So the RAID drivers would be afterwards. Make sense?

Yeah, that should work, but its easier to just use a raid aware imager.