Crashed Hard Drive

[f8tof11]

Hi,

I have an old computer with a pair of Segate internal drives in a RAID configuration.  The drives are 320GB drives.

The primary drive, 0, has crashed and I am running on the RAID drive, 2.

I would like to replace both drives with WD internal drives with all my software on the new WD drives which was on the Segate drives but do not know how to go about doing it.

Note: A year or so ago I built a desktop computer from scratch, using 4 WD drives with one pair set up in RAID configuration in the BOIS and the other pair set up in RAID configuration with Windows.  I am not a computer pro.  I was able to build the computer because I have a little knowledge about how computers work and I can read and follow instructions.

The system had Windows 7 Pro loaded on the drives.  I do not have the Windows 7 Pro discs for this system to load software.

What are my options?

Thanks,
Marty

[ERmorel]

Hello,

The option on this case will be clonning the drive. However, it might not be possible since the original drives are on a RAID configuration.

What RAID are you using on the drive?

[PC_Cobbler]

If I understand correctly, you installed Windows yourself when the system was built. If true, you can retrieve the activation code for Windows and reinstall it (if it is a Dell, HP, or another OEM PC, the activation code is probably only valid with a vendor disc). Search on “belarc advisor” (belarc.com), download it, and run it on that PC. It will give an inventory of everything including the Windows activation code. Then you will need a system disc for the same Windows version you have. People sell these on ebay and Amazon, but make sure you obtain the exact same thing. Any IT guy worth his salt has a drawerful of these discs. With the disc and code, you can reinstall Windows. If your system was OEM, you need an OEM disc; if your system was Microsoft, you need a Microsoft disc.

But before you spend any money on a disc, look at the below URL from WDC. Acronis is disk imaging software to copy a disk to a new one. I must admit, I’ve never imaged a RAID drive, but if your system is working, it should contain a complete operating system. Acronis is a free download from WDC, so you just have to invest your time. Read the instructions first. Install the new drive inside the case replacing the trashed one. However, as the moderator said, cloning a RAID drive is not the usual procedure.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en