How to setup RAID 1 with Intel RST on an existing Windows 7 system?

Posted by instcode on Super User See other posts from Super User or by instcode
Published on 2011-03-14T15:05:41Z Indexed on 2011/03/14 16:14 UTC
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I'd like to setup RAID-1 using Intel Rapid Storage Technology on my Windows 7 64-bit system.

I have an 1TB SATA HDD with Windows 7 system installed on the first primary partition (leftmost, ~200GB). The rest of this HDD is unallocated (~800GB). I bought another 2TB SATA, then created a primary partition (leftmost, ~500GB) and filled my data in. The rest of this HDD is unallocated (~1.5TB).

A quick disk layout (XXX is the unallocated region):

HDD1 (1TB): [ 200GB C:\ SYSTEM | XXXXXXXXXXXX ]

HDD2 (2TB): [ 500GB Z:\ PROGRAM | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ]

Now, I want to create a 500GB RAID-1 partition (I'm not sure if using "partition" is correct here) on the rightmost of the 2 HDDs above without losing any existing data from both disks. Here is the expected layout:

HDD1 (1TB): [ 200GB C:\ SYSTEM | XXXXXX | 500GB D:\ DATA - RAID-1 ]

HDD2 (2TB): [ 500GB Z:\ PROGRAM | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | 500GB D:\ DATA RAID-1]
  1. Let's not concern about data lost, is it possible to have that final layout using Intel RST? Previously, I tried this layout using dynamic disk & software RAID from Windows and it worked as expected, however, it's quite ugly in resynching after an OS failure that I don't want.
  2. If yes, is there a way to keep the data on existing partitions untouched or, at least, it should keep the SYSTEM partition safe (I'm okay if the PROGRAM partition has to be gone.)?
  3. Well, are there any strict/special steps I should follow when using the Intel RST manager in order to achieve that?

If none of those questions above are "Yes", could you please suggest some other possible layouts that leave the C:SYSTEM partition untouched?

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