Hello,

I am planning to set up a RAID 1 array on my computer.  I have
purchased two new Seagate 160GB ATA drives (both brand new,
unformatted, unpartitioned) that I plan to use as a 160 GB mirrored
array.  However, currently I have a smaller capacity hard drive that I
am using now as my primary boot drive with the operating system
installed (Windows 2000, NTFS formatted).

The mechanics of setting up the RAID array seem straightforward, but
my question is, is it possible to duplicate the contents of my
existing hard drive to the array?  This would save me the trouble of
reinstalling Windows, plus all my applications, drivers, settings,
etc.

My motherboard is the Soyo KT-333 Dragon Ultra Platinum which uses the
Highpoint HPT372 chipset for hardware RAID.  The hard drives are
unopened Seagate 160GB Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023A drives.  I would
like them to use the NTFS format.

I am looking for instructions on how to accomplish this, if it is
possible.  I would greatly prefer a solution that does not require the
purchase of additional software.  Open source or shareware programs
(that have the needed functionality enabled) are fine.  Knoppix,
maybe?

Thanks!

---

Clarification of Question by h22bluelude-ga on 16 Aug 2005 13:21 PDT

First, I would like to thank bschonec for the comment.  I should also
clarify that I do not have any familiarity with Linux; my Knoppix
suggestion was based on my knowledge that it is quite useful in
recovering data from bad drives.  I was theorizing that maybe Knoppix
would be able to manipulate the data on my drives since it is running
from memory and thus not dependent on the drives themselves.

You could try using a product like Norton Ghost or boot to a linux
disk and try something like this:


dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

Note:  this is pseudo-code and is only to give you a general idea of
how to clone a disk in Linux.