AHCI/RAID - Unique/Awkward HDD to SSD Win 7 migration

[HomerPepsi]

Hardware:
Asrock Z77 extreme6
Storage set to AHCI Mode (and windows was installed with AHCI mode)

1TB HDD volume split into two partitions:
C:\ 704GB (Simple, Basic, NTFS, System, Boot, PF, Active, Primary Partition with windows 7 64bit pro)
H:\ 226GB (Simple, Basic, NTFS, Primary Partition)

2 x OCZ Vertex 3 128GB SSD's striped (RAID0, like spanning) into one volume:
E:\ 223GB (Striped, Dynamic, NTFS)

Backup drives
1TB HDD volume
G:\
200GB HDD Volume
F:\

I've had my SSD's for since 2012, not really doing much. I've put off migrating for so long due to all the garbage I had one my C drive. I have removed all junk software, moved My Music, My Videos and Google Drive to H:\. There is now less than 100gb used on C:\.

My questions are:

1) can I clone a partitioned OS volume ( C:\ ) to a SSD and still have a functioning computer in the end?

2) can I clone a OS volume to the striped SSD volume (E:\) and still have a functioning computer in the end?

3) can I clone a partitioned OS volume ( C:\ ) to the striped SSD volume (E:\) and still have a functioning computer in the end?

4) How do I handle drive letters after all is said and done?

Thanks kindly.

 

[HomerPepsi]

Ok. My bios (asrock z77 extreme6) is set to AHCI. Windows was installed using AHCI. The striped ssd volume is made by windows Disk Management utility, inside windows. Hence the "dynamic" disk reported back and I guess it is not technically RAID0 at this point because it is not hardware.

So I went ahead an cloned the OS partition to the striped SSD volume but was unable to boot because the bios still saw both SSD's as separate Disks. The answers to questions 1-3 are yes and no. You can clone the partition to the striped drive, no problem. But loading windows off of this is impossible as far as I can tell. The answer to question 4 is nothing happens to the drive letters after performing the clone.

Not satisfied, I deleted the striped volume which left me with 2 unallocated ssd's. I then installed intel's Rapid Storage Technology (the last compatible driver, as the latest was not compatible with my hardware). Then went into BIOS and switched to RAID (which of course made my computer un-bootable). CTRL-I 'd and went into Intels raid setup and set them up there as a RAID0 volume. All good so far.

Entered BIOS again and switched back to AHCI. Booted from the normal HDD C:\.

Intel's RST application (in tray) is giving me an exclamation mark warning. Opening it and on the status page it says,

Your system is reporting one or more events, and data may be at risk.
Your system is configured to enable advanced SATA features for optimal power management and increased storage performance.
Refer to the details below for more information.

But there is no information. And only my HDD are visible. There is no SSD volumes listed.

I go into disk management and see that my raid0 volume is present as an uninitialized, unallocated single volume!

I created a new simple volume from that and am going to clone windows to that to see how it works. (don't worry I wont be destroying my bootable HDD partition). I will report back how this goes.

 

[Woomack]

In most cases you can clone single drive to drives in RAID. However if it's going to boot depends from drivers and how OS handles it. I was moving single drives to RAID and back on Win7 many times but it was not always booting. A lot depends from cloning software. Macrium Reflect works good.

You don't need and better if you won't even install Intel soft. All you need is RAID driver installed regardless if drive is in RAID or AHCI mode. RAID driver has built-in AHCI.

Drive letters will be set as on old system. If there will be added additional drives/partitions etc then OS will be always C while other drives may change letters.