Raid 1 question

[ingeborgdot]

Here is the setup. XP MCE
2-320gb hdd set up in raid 1 with the os on one partition along with apps
the other partition has the videos and pics etc.
If I want to upgrade the os to vista what will I need to do? Am I going to lose all the other things on my other partition? Someone said they would have done a raid 1 with the os on a whole other hdd but didn't say why? Is anyone knowledgeable enough to explain it to me and tell me what process I will have to go through? Thanks .

 

[Madwand1]

RAID and partitions are two different things. Think of RAID as just defining a virtual drive, and partitions just as higher-level segmentation that can be done on any drive.

Yes, you have to consider the RAID part for the Vista installation. This might mean that you have to supply the RAID and SATA drivers during the installation in order for Vista to recognize the RAID array properly.

After that, it's just another drive to Vista. Is the OS partition big enough for Vista? Can you drop all the contents of the OS partition? If "yes" to both, then you could be fine installing Vista in the OS partition. If "no" to either, then you might be better off getting another drive, and putting Vista on that. This could be the safest approach in any case.

There are umpteen variations on this, and some details that are not generally well-known -- you'll have to figure some of this out for yourself.

 

[ingeborgdot]

So I have the os and raid in place and have partitioned. Now when I go back to replace the os with the new os vista will I lose my raid? I think I will but? I won't lose my partition with the info on will I? So when I go and install the new os it will show me my partitions if I am not mistaken and I just treat it like I did my first install deleting the old os and adding the new but adding the raid drivers again? Does this make sense to anyone?
Yes, the partition for the os is 80gb so it is big enough to work.

 

[Madwand1]

The RAID array is now like your drive. In general, if you lose the RAID, you lose everything. RAID 1 is a very special case of RAID though, it's almost like a simple drive. So you might be able to lose the RAID 1 definition, and go back to having a single drive (even two of them with similar data).

To do things properly and not lose the RAID, Vista has to either come with the correct set of drivers shipped, or you have to provide the drivers to Vista through floppy or USB or something else during the installation.

 

[ingeborgdot]

So if I provide the drivers for raid which should be no problem I will not lose any info. What was the one person talking about then when he said that he didn't put his os on the same raid as the docs etc?