They forgot to configure my discs as RAID 1

Greetings,

Over a year ago, I purchased my very first desktop after having used laptops exclusively and being online since 1986. I configured it for speed. System details at the bottom.

I have an 80 GB SSD "C" drive and two identical 1-TB HDDs which I thought was my "D" drive. One of the options was for a RAID1 configuration which I selected. All this time, I thought I was kind of 'protected' with the mirrored drives. Somehow I discovered that my BIOS is set to IDE instead of to RAID(XHD) <--which is necessary for RAID. (Not that I really understand all this - tapping Ctrl-i during POST did not take me to the Intel Matrix Storage utility)....and that I do NOT have a functioning RAID1 setup.

Speaking with customer service, I learned that changing over to a RAID1 configuration at this time will eradicate ALL data on the 1-TB drives. Start over again? I don't think so.

I also discovered that one of the connections was dangling so that Computer Management in Win 7 had no idea there is a second data drive present! I re-connected it, restarted, and now I see that "Disk 1" is unallocated. Judging by the size (it's identical to Disk 2, my D drive), I suppose this is my other 1 TB drive now partially visible. (1) How to I "allocate" it so the drive is one I can use?

I also now see that my 80 GB SSD has 101MB unallocated! (2) Is that much of the SSD, disk 0, supposed to be unallocated? (3) can I get that 101 MB into action without losing any data? (my OS and other data is on this drive)

I was thinking that I'd just "copy" my "D" to the new "E" or "J" or "M" (whatever I name it; (4) might it take-over the "D" designation? is this a concern?) drive manually yo have a sort of mirrored backup. I am now thinking that that's not a good solution because the programs installed on "D" know where they are supposed to reside and changing the drive letter will confuse the software...and maybe even break diestinations "C" might point to.

Then I wondered (5) is there a way to make a backup of my entire system, everything, all data, all programs, all settings....then do the RAID 1 configuration (which wipes all data), then "restore" the backup or mirror of my system "D" drive (data drive) without having to re-install all the configured software and everything?

I could sure use some guidance here.

 

My understanding is that Windows 7 will create a 100 MB partition during install which is called the System Recovery. This partition is used to keep a copy of the boot files needed to troubleshoot the computer if Windows 7 is not able to boot. However, it looks like this partition was not properly created or has been deleted somehow. If you want to recover the 101 MB of disk space you can try right-clicking the C: drive and select extend volume from computer management.

From computer management right-click the unallocated space for Disk 1 and select New Simple Volume. The New Simple Volume Wizard will step you though the process.

You can use a cloning software such as Norton Ghost (http://us.norton.com/ghost/) or Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/). I personally use a product called Clonezilla (http://clonezilla.org/) however its linux based so it's not as easy to use as the other packages, but it's free. You will have to create the backup on something other than the drives you want to turn into a RAID or the backup will get formatted.

 

(1) Is there a way to tell for sure there is no needed or necessary data here within this sort of un-partitioned partition? I mean, it sure looks 'empty' to me since it is "unallocated," I'd just like definitive confirmation.

(2) Where are the System Recovery programs/files if they are not in that unallocated space, and how do I verify that?

Right-clicking on the healthy portion of the C: drive has the extend option greyed-out. And, there is no "shrink volume" option in the unallocated pert. (3) Might I be required to allocate the 101 MB part, shrink it...THEN expand the healthy part of C: ?(which would leave some tiny fragment unless I can shrink it to oblivion) (4) is there a way to just get rid of the 101MB partition so that I can expand the healthy part to the maximum?

Woo. That was easy. Nothing like another quick TB to make me feel at least temporarily enriched! lol

Hmmm....methinks that might mean getting a 1TB external drive to hold the data (what's on C: and D: ). Me also thinks that this is a workable possibility: Make a mirror copy, put that on an external drive, configure my twin TBs as RAID1, do a backup or restore or whatever the clone pasting is called back onto my C: and D: drives (and the D: would actually be the RAID1 drives)...(5) Right?

Thanks for your comments (and all others that might appear)

 

I didn't configure my signature correctly, here's my system: Thanks more,

Win 7x64, Office 2007, Photoshop, Outlook, Chrome, MSE, Gigabyte X58A-UD3R DDR3 USB 3.0 SATA 3 MoBo, i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M CPU, 80 GB SSD, two 1 TB HDD 3GB/7200 ROM, 6 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM and a really fast internet connection