[gordee78]

Hi all -- Noob to the forums -- nice environment you guys have here, lots of good reading the last few days.

First question: Currently have a RAID-1 setup (mirroring) on a WinXP SP2 using two 80Gig SATAs. My mobo is a p4p800-se. I have decided to go to an external HDD (USB) for backups and want the extra 80Gig for storage. There isi plenty of help for people on howto setup RAID, but it's difficult for me to search for how to revert from a RAID-1 to a regular SATA setup. Can anyone layout any steps? Is it as simple as:
1) Backup all data to usb hdd
2) go into bios of p4p800-se and change "SATA RAID" setting to NO.
3) Boot single drive 'normally'??

Also, what does one do with the Intel applicaiton accelerator? Uninstall? Will IAA or WinXP pull a fit when all of a sudden there is no RAID information? Will the HDD boot at all?

And my second question (related to the first question):

I'd like to do weekly *full* drive image backups. I've looked into programs such as norton ghost 9.0 and acronis true image but either doesn't seem to do what I want: I have a 80G primary disk. And a 200G USB disk with a 80G and 120 G partition. I'd like to image the 80G onto the 80G *partition* while leaving the extra 120G partition for scratch space -- neither of the above programs can image a drive to a partition (but insist on doing drive to drive, and re-writing target drive partition table!)?? (Ie if disaster strikes, I have ability install removable drive directly onto mobo and boot from it). Anyone know how I can get this accomplished on a scheduled routine? And while I'm here, anyone know of a program that will shut down the computer after the backup? This way I'd schedule all backups to be completed while I'm away from home!

TIA

 

[johnwill]

It's news to me that Acronis True Image won't do a full drive backup to an image, and I suspect it would be news to Acronis too. :grin:

In case the point didn't get through, Acronis True Image version 8 will do fully automated backups of either partitions or whole drives. It will also function backing up from and restoring to a RAID array. I do both operations here.

You can schedule the backup to run at a given time, then allow plenty of time for the backup to complete, and then schedule a shutdown using Task Scheduler.

 

[linderman]

Welcome to TSF:

I would start my venture as you have noted by backing up the contents of the drive to the USB drive

then enter the bios and "disable the raid controller"

then you would need to load the sata driver to activate the sata controller

I dont think windows will freak out when the raid is no longer able to be found / but you never know

I would wipe the drive clean though to prevent any confusion after I did a through back-up
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ >>>> download floppy version

as far as back-up prog goes you wwill find xxclone.com (free evaluation period) is going to be exactly what you are asking for / it will save to partition without choking the whole drive / it will do auto back-ups / and you can either make the back-up bootable or file based only your choice ~~~ no imaging required ~~ no DOS required ~~ no tutorials required ~~ just kindergarten easy

There are only two windows GUI screens for you to interact with / the main console which asks you to select the source drive and select the target drive and an advanced button where you need to insert a check mark into three bootable options write mbr boot.ini boot something else (i forget)
its that easy / the dog could be trained to do it !!

there is a .chm file found within the start/programs/ xxclone that has directions as well as a very handy forum just for xxclone discusssion / i have seen many people rave how easy it is to make an auto back-up line command for auto back-ups / i havent played with that feature myself but dont believe its that hard as I had seen many people walked through the process on the xxclone discussion forum ?????

if you have any more questions / dont hesitate to ask

regards

joe