Create an image backup from my RAID configured hard drive

If you have RAID 0 and one drive fails you have lost all of the data that was not backed up. With RAID 0, part of your data is written to one drive and part to the other. On the other hand, with RAID 1, the same data is written to both drives so that if one drive fails, you data is still accessible from the surviving drive. The purpose of RAID 1 is to protect against data loss. The purpose of RAID 0 is to gain speed. The disadvantage of RAID 1 is that you have to buy an extra drive. The disadvantage of RAID 0 is that you will loose all you data with a HD failure (either drive not both).

 

I have Ghost 10 and RAID 1. In the two years since I have been using Ghost, I have had to restore from it twice and each time it worked perfectly. I would not be without it and I highly recommend it.

 

I don't know if Ghost works with RAID 0 but I would not be surprised if it does not. However, it is worth a hour or two of serious googling because your data is really at high risk right now. Since accessibility to your data depends on both drives working properly, with RAID 0 you essentially double your chances of lossing it due to a drive failure.

 

When I bought my Dim 8400 three years ago I did some researching on the speed advantages of RAID 0 and concluded that there is very little if any gain in speed. I don't know if that is still the case. Be that as it may and since you are concerned about your data, I would look into switching over to RAID 1.

What would be involved in upgrading my PC from RAID 0 to RAID 1?

 

Raid 0 to 1 requires you to first delete the Raid 0 array (lose all data), configure the new Raid 1 array, and either install the OS clean or use an Image you made to restore it to the new Raid1 array.

 

 

I prefer Acronis over Ghost

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

If you do make an Image, be sure to make a Full disk Image All Partitions.

" would be prudent to do a straight file copy of all your critical files so you can have them in case the image restore fails"

 

That is the beauty of Acronis, you can mount the Acronis image as a drive letter and browse your files. You can also verify the Acronis image after making it to be sure it is a good one. Nice software.

Moondog's suggestion of making an image and then using it to restore after you have reconfigured to RAID 1 sounds like a winner to me. I've never used Acronis. One thing I can say about Ghost is that if you look around, you can often find it offered by the internet discount sites like Outpost for free or close to it.

 

You have all the needed hardware to switch to RAID 1 which is two identical drives. There are quite a few threads on this forum which tell you how to do this re-configuration. There are also you Dell docs.

 

After you have made an image but before you have re-copnfigured to RAID 1, it would be prudent to do a straight file copy of all your critical files so you can have them in case the image restore fails. I say that because making an image of a RAID 0 disk sounds a little unusual to me and I like to be on the safe side.

 

 

www.outpost.com   otherwise known as Fry's Electronics, they bought Outpost years ago.

SteveP55419  said "One thing I can say about Ghost is that if you look around, you can often find it offered by the internet discount sites like Outpost for free or close to it".

 

What is the web address for Outpost?  I tried a Google search but did not find it!!!

 

Also, I see that Norton Ghost has the following feature:

LightsOut Restore – Restore your system with on-disk software recovery environment – no bootable CD required.

 

This sounds quite useful.  But how does it work?  Surely if your OS gets corrupt you need to boot from a CD?

I see that Norton Ghost has the following feature:

I think that is a feature that came after my version (10).

 

For me, Ghost works like this: if you can get into windows but you need to restore, you just click the appropriate menu. If you can't get into windows, you insert the Ghost CD. They are probably talking about the second situation. They have probably found a way to put Ghost on a special partition or something. I really doubt that it makes that much difference.

 

BTW, Ghost lets you browse your saved images in an explorer interface so you can restore individual files as well as the whole disk.

 

Good luck with it. If you find out that Ghost can make an image of a RAID 0 setup, you might want to create a thread on that so others can benefit. As of right now, I am sceptical.