It's Arrived!

[chat_to_rich]

Scruff, I'm sure you can do it, it's not difficult.

First move any data from D E F onto drive C.
Turn off the PC and unplug one of the 2TB hard drives
Turn on PC and enter the BIOS. Enable RAID on the motherboard for the Intel chipset, see p82 in your motherboard manual.
Save BIOS changes and reboot.
Press CTRL-I to enter RAID after the BIOS screen, p83. Follow the instructions on p83, creating a RAID 1 volume from two 2TB drives.
Exit RAID setup and load Windows.
Click Start, then right-click on Computer and choose Manage.
Go to Disk Management, look in the bottom section of the middle pane.
You should see the new 2TB drive. Right click initialise, partition and quick format the disk.
Give it a drive letter and label it as RAID or something appropriate.
You can now see the RAID drive in Windows Explorer etc.
Turn off and plug in the remaining 2TB drive.
Start Windows and go into Computer.
Label the drive Backup or something appropriate.

That's the main steps. Next you need to move your files to the RAID drive. You could also install a small Intel utility to monitor the array.

[chat_to_rich]

If you want to go ahead with the steps above please can you go into the BIOS and check the mode for the SATA controller as detailed on p82 of your manual and post back the current setting. Hopefully, it's currently AHCI as this will make things easier.

[thescruff]

If he could do it in the hour It's not worth me messing with it.

[thescruff]

Getting confused here with keyboards and monitors.

PCH SATA Control Mode [AHCI]

Anything else while I'm in here

[chat_to_rich]

AHCI is good news. Saves an extra step.

[thescruff]

There was an option to change it to raidXHD].

[thescruff]

What is the symbol you press on page 83.

ctrl + <|> is that the one to the right of shift.

My eyes are not good for all this.

Have you ever tried typing and reading with a magnifying glass at the same time.

[chat_to_rich]

I think it's CTRL I

[chat_to_rich]

That's i - it's not clear above!

[thescruff]

I think it's CTRL I

It looks like the vertical bar and not a letter.

ctrl<|> but you have to press shift to get it to show, not ctrl

Definitely aint ctrl i

[chat_to_rich]

It's ctrl i Just checked on my PC.

[thescruff]

Ok.

[thescruff]

Update or not as is the case.

Spoke to the guy before he turned up, and he was explaining how difficult it is to set up a Raid Array, and it could all go wrong and he'll need to take the computer away and Blar, Blar etc etc.

So I suggested it could cost anywhere from £60.00 for the first hour to over a £1000.00 when it all goes tits up.

Told him not to bother turning up so looks like a DIY job after all.

Have to wait for a week or two, so any hot tips will be welcome.

Pssssssst if I do it and the computer still works, do I qualify for Nerd status.

[BillyGoat]

So I suggested it could cost anywhere from £60.00 for the first hour to over a £1000.00 when it all goes tits up.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet to be honest. Anyone that needs to take a computer away and charge over a grand to setup a RAID set with empty drives is best avoided.

And yes, you would be classed as a nerd.....

[thescruff]

At the moment I'm consolidating the PDFs, I think I have 6 copies of them in different places, They have got fragmented over the years, so would be nice to get them down to a working copy and a backup.