establish raid 1 on a notebook

I just purchased an HP HDX notebook with two 120 GB drives and Vista 64-bit
ultimate. One of the 120 GB drives is empty, and I would like to convert the
drives into a RAID 1 array. I have no idea on how to do this. Can anyone
help? Thank you.

-Mike

Tony
Mon Feb 25 10:33:45 PST 2008

First, you'll need either a motherboard with a on-board chip that can do the
Raid'ing, or an expansioncard that will fit inside the notebook - then,
three empty partitions of a combined size that is about twice the size of
your prefered working user space.

I have never used RAID just on partitions but on complete disks and this
requires all the disk space to be un-partitioned (new disks!) - I don't know
if you can do it starting from empty partitions, any way your hardware must
accommodate for doing this.

I suggest you sit down and type "raid technology" into your favorite search
engine and have Internet serve up some week-end litterature for you.

From your resources, you'll basically have a 60 GB RAID to work on, and I'm
not sure that is what you want. You may investigate the possibility to have
three external SATA drives and run it from that but it will probably draw a
fair bit of current to do that. Personally, I don't think I'd bother!


Tony. . .


"MMT" <MMT@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:24E441C5-6587-4387-A281-7DFC91A0E7ED@microsoft.com...
>I just purchased an HP HDX notebook with two 120 GB drives and Vista 64-bit
> ultimate. One of the 120 GB drives is empty, and I would like to convert
> the
> drives into a RAID 1 array. I have no idea on how to do this. Can anyone
> help? Thank you.
>
> -Mike

Charlie
Mon Feb 25 10:55:54 PST 2008

Unfortunately, Microsoft client operating systems don't support RAID-1 as a
software feature. They do support hardware RAID solutions, assuming the
vendor provides a driver, but that won't help you with your laptop, which
doesn't have a RAID controller in it.

The best you can do is to use some sort of imaging software (such as
Acronis), to periodically image the main drive onto the second.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"MMT" <MMT@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:24E441C5-6587-4387-A281-7DFC91A0E7ED@microsoft.com...
>I just purchased an HP HDX notebook with two 120 GB drives and Vista 64-bit
> ultimate. One of the 120 GB drives is empty, and I would like to convert
> the
> drives into a RAID 1 array. I have no idea on how to do this. Can anyone
> help? Thank you.
>
> -Mike

Theo
Mon Feb 25 10:59:58 PST 2008

You need to do 2 things.
1. Read you owners manual to see if it tells you whether
you laptop supports a RAID configuration.
2. Contact HP Tech Support to find out what software
drivers you need for your laptop.

Although you may want to run Vista in a RAID configuration,
that's a hardware specific issue, not an operating system
issue. Once a RAID is properly configure and you have the
appropriate drivers, you install Vista just as you would on
a single hard drive.


MMT wrote:
> I just purchased an HP HDX notebook with two 120 GB drives and Vista 64-bit
> ultimate. One of the 120 GB drives is empty, and I would like to convert the
> drives into a RAID 1 array. I have no idea on how to do this. Can anyone
> help? Thank you.
>
> -Mike

Theo
Mon Feb 25 11:12:22 PST 2008

A search of the HP for 'HDX +RAID' does not come up with
anything, so your hardware may not support a RAID configuration.

Contact Hewlett Packard Tech support for your hardware
specific questions and issues.


MMT wrote:
> I just purchased an HP HDX notebook with two 120 GB drives and Vista 64-bit
> ultimate. One of the 120 GB drives is empty, and I would like to convert the
> drives into a RAID 1 array. I have no idea on how to do this. Can anyone
> help? Thank you.
>
> -Mike