torj

So I have a K8V SE with an 80mb Seagate HDD currently installed as only drive.(running XP PRO) I just purchased 2 Samsung 160gig SATA drives, because I wanted to protect myself against HDD failure with growing collection of digital photos and other personally valuable info, and I had envisioned creating a 0+1 array, foolishly thinking that 2 drives could be striped and that one could be the "mirror". I have since learned that to do a 0+1 you need 4 drives. I really don't want to go through the hassles of backing up all data to a different storage device and reinstalling OS, all programs, etc. Question is best possible configuration to use. Is it possible (advisable) to create a RAID 1 array using the Raid ATA connector(s) and simply migrating my data to the Raid array and leaving OS and programs on current drive? Or would I be much better off buying another drive and setting up a true 0+1 array. If I do go with the 2nd option will it be possible to simply change the socket from the primary IDE drive to the PRI Raid socket (adding a slave?) and not have to worry about data loss, configuration problems, etc?
Thanks in advance for your much appreciated advice.
tor