Creating Raid1 Array with existing hard drive.

[idata]

I have a S5000VSA mobo with a 250gig hd. I would like to create a RAID 1 array with a second identical drive. My question is, can i create the array and build the mirror using the existing data on the original hd or do i have to start from scratch. Raid is not configured in the BIOS at this time

[Daniel_O_Intel]

I think you have to start from scratch. The RAID user guide at http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-022358.htm says "Caution:All data on the virtual drive is erased during an initialization."

[idata]

Thanks for the info Dan. I thought i would have to start fresh with with the Raid 1 creation, but i have been able mirror port 1 from port 0 after creating the array on a promise hardware raid card. Different server though.

[idata]

If you are running Linux, you can create a RAID-1 volume with only one drive, copy your data over to it, then add the data drive to the RAID-1 vol. This isn't hardware based, but it has saved me a lot of time and grief in the past

Steven Wheeler