Exchange Hard Drives

[B737Capt]

I currently have two 500 gig Seagate hard drives that I want to replace with two 500 gig Western Digital hard drives. The reason I am doing this is because I am unhappy with the noise I get from the Seagate drives. My Seagate drives are currently setup in a RAID 1 config.

My question is: What is the best way to transfer all of my programs and info from one set of hard drives to the new set? I know I could just re-install everything, but that would be very time consuming. Is there any easier way? Also I want to make sure my RAID volume remains as the C: drive.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Eickst]

If this is a RAID 0, I would reinstall everything. (And personally I wouldn't use RAID 0 but let's not discuss that in public where others may be listening.... )

 

[marcusicp]

If it is raid 1 why don't you just remove one of the old drives and replace it with one of the new ones and let the array rebuild itself then do it agin with the other drive? Ofcourse you want to backup everything before you start just to be sure.

 

[game14]

just clone the current drives to the new ones with acronis true image .I do that every time i switch drives ... its easy and works fine

 

[B737Capt]

just clone the current drives to the new ones with acronis true image .I do that every time i switch drives ... its easy and works fine

This software sounds interesting. Can you give me a basic idea of how I would use it in this effort? In particular how I would go about to make sure my new RAID1 drives would show up as the C: drive? I tried chnaging drives some years ago and had one heck of time trying to get my computer to show the drives as a C: drive again. I really want to avoid such a time consuming mistake!

 

[Gorankar]

If it is raid 1 why don't you just remove one of the old drives and replace it with one of the new ones and let the array rebuild itself then do it agin with the other drive? Ofcourse you want to backup everything before you start just to be sure.

I have done that b4.. Works pretty good as long as the drives are the same size.. As for a back up.. The old drive he just removed is now one

 

[marcusicp]

I have done that b4.. Works pretty good as long as the drives are the same size.. As for a back up.. The old drive he just removed is now one

Yeah I thought of that but anytime someone is messing with hard drives I will always say to make back ups just in case something does happen they can't blame me. Force of habit I guess.

 

[game14]

This software sounds interesting. Can you give me a basic idea of how I would use it in this effort? In particular how I would go about to make sure my new RAID1 drives would show up as the C: drive? I tried chnaging drives some years ago and had one heck of time trying to get my computer to show the drives as a C: drive again. I really want to avoid such a time consuming mistake!

just plugg in the new HDD , set up the raid u want in the bios . Boot ur system from the old drives , start the software and clone it . Acronis is very easy to use , it takes care of the partition and everything , the new HDD show up as C after cloning . After that u simply unplugg ur old drives and thats pretty much it .
The new drives dont even have to be the same size , just make sure ur data from the old ones fit ur new HDD .
I ve cloned from an 250gb HDD to two 80gb drives in RAID 0 without any problems and i use the 250 gb for storage now . After cloning the 250gb showed up as D and the Raid as C .