Motherboard replacement with RAID

[leckers]

My current motherboard is an ASUS M2MPV-MX running Win7 64bit Home with 4GB RAM and AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual core 5200 MHz on a BIOS RAID 0 (Stripe) array with 2 identical 250GB dives. This setup has been working without any problem since installing Win7 over a year ago. I have a basic cable Home LAN linking another Win7 Laptop and a separate Linux desktop - all working OK.
I need to setup another desktop using a WiFi connection as I cannot run a cable to its position. I have an old desktop running WinXP which is working OK on the WiFi, but it is very slow indeed.
I would like to upgrade my main desktop listed above. The cheapest solution is to purchase a new motherboard, CPU and memory, and install these in my desktop - swopping out the M2MPV board, CPU and RAM, to install these in the 'old' desktop in its new position, with a fresh install of Win7 on this.
However, I suspect that fitting a new MB, CPU, and RAM in my original desktop, while being quite straightforward in itself, - I will discover that on first booting up, and creating a RAID 0 setup in the BIOS, I will have 'lost' my RAID array along with my data!
So, my questions are, how best to achieve no loss of data? Is there a way to create a RAID 0 array without wiping out all the data on the hard disks? Or, is there a fool-proof way of backing up my existing system - full backup of OS and data, - say a full 'image' backup, which can be 'restored' to the drives after creating the array on initial backup? Any/all advice gratefully received.

 

[RGone]

Might work...


nForce MCPs Solutions for AMD. Nine solutions listed for AMD without internal graphics.

A motherboard with one of those Nvidia chipsets "might" recognize your raid array IF you enable raid BEFORE hooking up the hard drives. IF the raid array were "pre-recognized" like that, then you would not have to setup an array and have the drives erased by choosing raid setup.

Personally, I certainly would have an image / backup that I might use if running into issues. Although with Win 7 an image can have some issues.

 

[leckers]

Thanks, RGone. Are you saying it is possible to setup the RAID array in the BIOS with the actual hard drives disconnected?
My other thoughts were of the kind - backup all my data on an external drive, install new MB, CPU, RAM, re-create the RAID (which would wipe the 2 HD/disks), re-install Win7, and then retrieve the data from the external hard disk? I shouldn't have a problem with Win7 'activation' as it will be my original MS OS CD.
What issues can arise from trying to restore from a Win7 image?

 

[RGone]

Thanks, RGone. Are you saying it is possible to setup the RAID array in the BIOS with the actual hard drives disconnected?

In my mind there is a difference between a setup of raid and ENABLING raid in bios with no drives attached. The raid setup is 'contained' on the two original drives that were in raid 0. So when raid is ENABLED in bios and then the two drives attached while off and then booted, most arrays are then seen when booted by the 'near same' raid controller.

My other thoughts were of the kind - backup all my data on an external drive, install new MB, CPU, RAM, re-create the RAID (which would wipe the 2 HD/disks), re-install Win7, and then retrieve the data from the external hard disk? I shouldn't have a problem with Win7 'activation' as it will be my original MS OS CD.

An "excellent" idea for sure and means you start with a fresh operating system install.

What issues can arise from trying to restore from a Win7 image?

There are many horror tales on the net about win 7 images not booting when restored to drives. Much was caused by 'older' type imaging software. However now other than Win 7 Home operating systems have built-in imaging software and there are multitudes of How-To's on the net for using that softwware to make an image and then restore it to a new system setup.

All of that considered your method of installing windows and then copying backed up data into the new windows installation should be a method for getting your system up and runnning without real issues. RGone...ster.

 

[davarei]

Before you try to run your old RAID 0 on a new chipset ... I'd make a preemptive backup of everything your hoping to keep.
That way, you'll have something ~if it doesn't fly