How do I tell my PC's RAID configuration

Question

EDIT

Just a quick reword of my original question...

Using Windows XP how do I determine which disks/drives/partitions are under the control of of my hardware RAID1 system?

My original question:

My PC is now a few years old. When I had it built I had a couple of drives set up as RAID 1 - I also had a few older drives that had my photos/music etc. on them which I popped in. I have also got a few partitions. Consequently I have drives C,E,F,G, and H visible. I know I have my system on RAID 1, but I can't for the life of me remember how the others are set up and which (if any) of my other drives (be they actual drives or just partitions) are also RAID.

Basically, one of my drives is now stuffed full of my photos and music so I need to reorganise but I want to ensure that I'm moving this valuable data to a RAID drive. How can I learn about my disc drive set up?

I'm running

• Windows XP (don't laugh! it ain't broke so I ain't fixing it!)
• AliSATA, hardware RAID

Forgive me if I'm using any incorrect terminology - I'm a web developer not an IT guy - to me my computer is a box full of wires and spinning things! :-) However, I'm fairly savvy and capable if I'm given good instructions... you just might need to dumb it down a little for me!

Solution 1

You could easily find by the following :

1.Login to your computer with an account that has Administrator rights.

2.Right-Click on Computer and select Manage

3.Select Device Manager, then locate and expand the Storage controllers category

you could find the raid controllers

Alternatively you can have a look on this servervault answer.

Solution 2

You need a Partition manager, then go to properties and look at drive ID, then look at your HDD inside case, and compare the id's. You can also go to RAID bios when computer starts, and see which drives is in RAID 1 state.

Comments

[Doug]

Cool - thanks. Any recommendation for a partition manager? There seem to be a few around. Clearly I'd be looking at something Open Source if at all possible.

[Doug]

Thanks, Vignesh4303. Using your first suggestion I've now learnt how my drives are partitioned. Disk 0 contains drives C and E. I know C is RAID 1 so can I assume that E is also RAID 1?

[BlueBerry - Vignesh4303]

@Doug yes you can assume disk e as raid level 1 usually raid 1 would be minimum two disk drives

[Doug]

I think a slight miscommunication there? Sorry... What I mean is I can see that my Disk 0 has been partitioned into C and E. I assume that my mirrored RAID drive (which would be invisible in this view because my system recognises two drives as a single drive) would contain mirrors of both drives C and E?

[Doug]

At this stage I could reword my question and ask simply "Does RAID 1 mirror an entire disk or just specific partitions/drives?"

[BlueBerry - Vignesh4303]

@Doug thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/raid-levels-tutorial this gives you the detailed view about your query

[Doug]

Thanks, @vignesh4303, funnily I have already read that page and understand the principles of RAID... I have just been unclear about how to find out which bits of my system are under the control of RAID. However this begins to clear up whether it's a disk-by-disk, or drive-by-drive situation. I reckon I'm safe copying my valuable files over to my drive E (which, fortunately, has plenty of space on it) as this is just a partition of the RAID drive pair. Thanks for your help.