Installing RAID on already running Win2003 server?

[Steve Grosz]

I have 1 SATA drive that is partitioned. I have the ability to run
RAID, and unfortunately I didn't set it up when I installed Win2003
server. I added the 2nd SATA drive, and now want to install the RAID
driver and add the drives.

Does anyone know if:

1) This will cause any bad issues with Win2003 Server?
2) Will the drives need to be reformatted first?
2a) If so, is it possible to backup all my Win2003 settings so I can
simply reinstall (if needed) and not miss a beat by having to
reconfigure the whole machine again?

Thanks!
Steve

 

[Marcelo]

Steve:

The disks must be Dynamics, so if they are now Basic, you must convert them
to dynamic.
The 2nd SATA disk must be empty because with 2 disk you could only mirror
disk 1 to disk 2.
You will not loose the data on disk 1 but allways make a backup, and doit
before you convert the disk to dynamic.
I never used RAID with SATA disks, RAIDs of any kind (0,1,5) so I could not
tell you if there are any issues, I have been using RAIDs 0,1 and 5 with
SCSI disk since NT4 with no problems...

Marcelo

 

[Colon Terminus]

I have 1 SATA drive that is partitioned. I have the ability to run
RAID, and unfortunately I didn't set it up when I installed Win2003
server. I added the 2nd SATA drive, and now want to install the RAID
driver and add the drives.

Does anyone know if:

1) This will cause any bad issues with Win2003 Server?
2) Will the drives need to be reformatted first?
2a) If so, is it possible to backup all my Win2003 settings so I can
simply reinstall (if needed) and not miss a beat by having to
reconfigure the whole machine again?

Thanks!
Steve

First off, DO NOT convert the drive(s) to dynamic as suggested by Marcelo.
This would be a terrible mistake and you'd only be asking for major
troubles.

You give very sketchy information, so the remainder of this post is based on
guesswork.

I'm guessing that you had only one drive installed and that was the SATA
drive. You installed the O/S to this partitioned SATA drive. Now you've
purchased an additional SATA drive and wish to create a RAID 1 consisting of
the two drives.

With that in mind, all you need to do is this:
Backup your current drive (an image, such as Ghost would be best) this is
just a CYA measure in case something goes horribly awry.
Install your RAID drivers.
Reboot.
Interrupt the reboot.
Power down
Install your second SATA drive.
Power up.
Interrupt the reboot.
Establish the RAID.copying the existing drive to the mirror drive.
Continue the reboot process.

Everything should be good to go.