RAID in windows 7 without deleting partition

[mystiqu]

Hi

I have 2 identical 1TB disks with a bunch of data on one of them, and I don´t have a 3rd disk where I can backup that data.

I´m trying to create mirrored volume using windows 7 software raid.
Does anyone know if it´s possible without deleting the entire volumes first?

I´ve converted the volumes to dynamic disks, but the raid options are still greyed out. It seems I have to delete the entire volume(?) before the raid options will appear (tried that on some old small disks I had in some corner).

Any help is appreciated

Kind regards,
Mikael

 

[Tmagic650]

No it is not possible, you have to clear any existing partitions first

 

[DelJo63]

I´ve converted the volumes to dynamic disks

bad idea. This creaes
a single logical volume that is the sum of both; sort of a RAID-0 but not raid at all.

RAID-x are options for servers. As a home user you are F A R better off no using raid at all.

 

[Tmagic650]

I decided to experiment with enabling AHCI and RAID 1...

"RAID-1 – Mirroring & Duplexing – 2 disk minimum without parity:
Set of two disks or more that more or less mirror one another. Meaning the data being written to the primary disk it is being duplicated on the secondary disk (or all other disks in the array). Data is written to all disks at the same time and can be read from each disk separately. Thus enhancing read time. The transfer rate per written block is equal to that of a single disk. If the primary disk in the array fails, the array can be configured to use the mirrored copy on one of the other disks in the array until you can replace the failed hard drive. After which, the data can be restored into the new drive from the other remaining drives in the array. This is NOT a substitute for backups"...

I have 2 SATA hard drives and 2 SATA Optical Drives. The speed of the computer/multitasking and the writing speeds of the CD DVD drives are notably faster. Windows Experience Rating increased 2 points in the hard drive categories... Note: My SATA hard drives are the same Seagate manufacturer, but different capacities. If I use identical drives, I can imagine even better speeds. A 250GB and a 420GB configured in RAID 1 equates to 465GB usable space, so you see that you sacrifice a lot of overhead