Need someone with more RAID knowledge than I

[fbrdphreak]

OK here's the situation:

Biostar GeForce 6100-M7 mobo
Two ~70GB Maxtor drives in RAID 0

Drive 1: ~6GB partition for Windows, main boot partition; remaining is RAID 0 partition
Drive 2: ~6GB partition unused; remaining is RAID 0 partition

Make sense? It's not terribly relevant, as I need to simply make more space available to the ~6GB Windows partition.

Acronis does not recognize RAID partitions. I don't see a way in Windows to do it.

Are there any straight forward ways to resize a RAID partition? At a minimum, I just want to make the RAID partitions smaller and add space to the boot partition.

If there are no straightforward ways to do this, I have two ideas I want some input on:

Plan A) Unplug one of the drives, that way Acronis will recognize the other one (hopefully). Resize the drive that is plugged in. Now do the same to the other drive (unplug one, use Acronis).
My concern with plan A is that I don't know if booting the system up with only one drive will FUBAR things. And resizing may FUBAR it alone for all I know. Anyone done something like this before?

Plan B) Copy the data off the RAID partition. Turn RAID off at the BIOS. Use Acronis to make sure the Windows partition is the main one, leave the 2nd drive unplugged. Make sure everything boots. Maximize the boot partition to take up all of drive 1. Plug in the 2nd drive - wipe partitions, set as drive D, copy the files from RAID partition back to drive D and everything is the same as far as Windows is concerned.

Are there any concerns of data loss with separating the drives, even temporarily and NOT booting into Windows while they are separated? What about with resizing the partitions independently?

What am I missing here? There's got to be a reasonably simple process.

Any thoughts? Questions? Snide remarks?

 

[Nothinman]

So you converted them both to dynamic disks and created a software RAID0 set from the end two partitions? Yea, good luck with that.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
So you converted them both to dynamic disks and created a software RAID0 set from the end two partitions? Yea, good luck with that.

I didn't do it. The jackass who set the computer up before I ever touched it. I'm trying to do the guy a favor.

So it sounds like a software RAID eh? The Biostar mobo supports RAID, I figured that meant it would be hardware.

So if I unplug the drive that DOESN'T contain the boot OS and turn RAID off, will it boot normally off the 6GB partition and let me repartition things? Then I reinstall the 2nd drive, repartition, and copy the data back to it. aka Plan B

EDIT As you can tell, I know jack about RAID.

 

[Nothinman]

Well I avoid the onboard fake RAID things whenever possible but I don't know of any that let you RAID partitions, you can only do full drives.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I have no idea how it was setup. I'm just wondering what will happen if I unplug the drives and start messing with them.

 

[Nothinman]

Nothing good, RAID0 is just a stripe across both drives. If one drive isn't present that volume won't be accessible.

 

[RebateMonger]

What, exactly, is the operating system?
And what does Disk Management say about the hard drives and their partitions?

Obviously, make a full backup of any important data before doing anything.

I'd approach this by making backups of the partitions and restoring them onto the desired larger partitions. The OS partition is the tough one. If you make changes in the drive controller, Windows may not boot.

Data partition backups/restores can be done on a file-by-file restore and shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know about Acronis' home software, but their Enterprise trial versions handle RAID arrays just fine.

 

[fbrdphreak]

XP SP2

Disk Management says exactly what I laid out above. The two disks are partitioned exactly the same (~6GB & ~70GB). On disk 1, the 6GB partition has Windows loaded on it and it is the boot partition; the 6GB partition on disk 2 is unused. The 70GB partition on each drive are the RAID 0 partitions.

Or did you want to know something else?

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
What, exactly, is the operating system?
And what does Disk Management say about the hard drives and their partitions?

Obviously, make a full backup of any important data before doing anything.

I'd approach this by making backups of the partitions and restoring them onto the desired larger partitions. The OS partition is the tough one. If you make changes in the drive controller, Windows may not boot.

Data partition backups/restores can be done on a file-by-file restore and shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know about Acronis' home software, but their Enterprise trial versions handle RAID arrays just fine.

I'll have to give their Enterprise version a try. I am using the Home version of TrueImage.

 

[RebateMonger]

Assuming:
The disks will be connected to the same drive controller in the same mode (IDE or SATA)

1) I'd pick up a new drive (larger than the original and lets you keep the original drive pair unaltered in case of disaster).
2) Use NTBackup to back up all partitions. For the boot partition, be sure to back up the System State.
3) Start an install of XP SP2. Create the larger boot partition and any data partitions desired.
4) Boot Windows and run NTBackup to restore the boot partition to its original configuration on the larger partition.
5) Run NTBackup and restore any data partitions.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Really trying to avoid reinstalling Windows or purchasing new drives. This isn't my system and I don't have time to go through all that. I agree that's the better solution though.

 

[Nothinman]

Disk Management says exactly what I laid out above. The two disks are partitioned exactly the same (~6GB & ~70GB). On disk 1, the 6GB partition has Windows loaded on it and it is the boot partition; the 6GB partition on disk 2 is unused. The 70GB partition on each drive are the RAID 0 partitions.

Which means it's Windows software RAID which has nothing to do with the BIOS.

Really trying to avoid reinstalling Windows or purchasing new drives. This isn't my system and I don't have time to go through all that. I agree that's the better solution though.

In order to do any partition management you need something that understand both Dynamic Disks and Windows software RAID.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I wonder if I install Acronis (rather than just boot from the disc) and backup both partitions within Windows, could I then wipe the drives, repartition normally, and restore the images? If Acronis could recognize the partitions in Windows that might work. There is no reason it needs to stay RAIDed, in fact I'd rather it not be.

 

[Nothinman]

It's possible, but I really doubt it. Not many tools support dynamic disks let alone Windows software RAID because it's so rarely used. Hell, most people are scared of dynamic disks even if they don't know why.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I see. I'm reading more about dynamic disks and see all the shit involved.

I assume if I tried something like this, that the RAID partitions would be FUBAR?

http://thelazyadmin.com/blogs/...ck-to-Basic-Disks.aspx

If it's worth anything, I can hook one drive at a time in an external enclosure to my laptop to work on.

 

[Nothinman]

I assume if I tried something like this, that the RAID partitions would be FUBAR?

Yea, the data is spread evenly across the two partitions in a RAID0 so you'd lose all of it.

If it's worth anything, I can hook one drive at a time in an external enclosure to my laptop to work on.

Nope, you need both to be able to acccess the data in the RAID0 volume.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Yeah, I think this guy is SOL for now. I'm going to suggest he pick up an XP license, copy files off, and reformat...

 

[RebateMonger]

BTW, if you had a Windows Home Server around, I believe its backup/restore function could do this for you. I did some experimental backups of a dyamic-disk-based RAID array and indications were that it'd be entirely possible to restore the system partition from a software-RAID partition to a single non-dynamic disk. Again, this is assuming that the drive controllers are the same.

I'd foolishly installed a Dell Diagnostics Partition (EISA) on the disk I was recovering to, and it was causing problems, but if that dumb partition wasn't there, it looked like the recovery would have worked.