New HDD

[peterb]

Not really. If your existing hard drive is failing, you need to get the data off it now, not mess about with RAID. The only thing RAID would do now is copy the disk (in RAID1) and it will be much slower than just cloning it directly.

Options are:

1. Clone the existing disk to the new one. New drive then becomes the master drive and system boots off it.

2. Get new drive, install it as master, reload the operating system. Then install old drive as a slave and just copy user data off it. (Easier if you have a dedicated partition for user data, otherwise data is splashed around the windows system

3. Get new drive and mount it in a USB caddy. Copy teh user data and as much configuration data as I could off the old drive. RMA it, wait for teh replacement then re-install operating system, copy over user data and configuration files from the external caddy.

4. If you don't have a lot of user data and you have a DVD writer, write critical and user files to teh DVD - saves buying another drive.

5. Use Windows backup (if you installed it) to backup to a series of DVDs - but if you didn't install it, don't waste time doing it now if the disk is on its way out.

6. Get new drive, reconfigure the system as a RAID array (which may compromise the data on the existing disk anyway, depending on how the RAID controller works) then wait for ages until the new disk has copied the data over, and hope it doesn't fail in the meantime.

Personally I would go for option1 using a Linux live CD to do the cloning - or if I was really worried about the data, option 2 or 3 and woryy about the OS later, once my data was safe.

Hope that helps

[IainM]

Thanks for the quick reply..

So the best option really is to buy another HDD..

I wasn't meaning to put them into RAID..

I was going to make a copy of the HDD once i had the new one and then put them into RAID after since i'ld have two brand new HDD's with more space than i need..

I was rather impressed with the spinspoint since it was dead silent when it was working normally but if there are any better buys out there let me know,

Thanks,

Iain.

[Lourdes]

So the best option really is to buy another HDD..

Well you could burn anything essential to DVD and wait for the RMA or buy a smaller USB drive and do the same (it'll be useful in future for backups). The Samsung HDD RMA (handled by Rexo) is really fast, they tend to send replacements by next day UPS as soon as your drive is checked in and I always get brand new drives from them. So if you can wait you might save yourself buying another internal drive you don't need.

[IainM]

OK,

I've bought another 400GB Samsung Spinpoint HDD..

I've spoke to Scan regarding the RMA of the HDD i currently have installed, i'm going to wait for the new HDD to arrive then transfer what i want onto the new one and then format the faulty and send it back.

Since i've now got 2 HDD's i'm wondering if there's a way to put them into RAID 0 without having to do a total format of both HDD's.

Just wondered if it's possible, as far as i know it's not but if anyone has any reccomendations i'ld be greatfull.

Thanks,

Iain

[Lourdes]

You're RMA'ing it with Scan? Much quicker to go direct.

If you want to go RAID 0 then you'd lose all your data, RAID 0 isn't really worth it anyway. You'd be better off with a faster single drive.

[peterb]

Don't use the suspect drive in a RAID 0 array. In fact I'd go as far as to say don't use RAID0 at all. It stripes the data across both drives, which under certain circumstances can give a performance increase, but those circumstances are unlikely to be met in a home environment (usually it is with large numbers of sequential transfers, duch as database transactions) The bottom line is that if one of the two drioves fail, then all data is lost.

Now that you have the spare drive, either copy or clone the faulty drive and get the system up and running.

By the way, formatting the old drive will not delete the data off it, it only resets the p[artition table etc. If you have stored anything sensitive on it, then you need to look at some form of secure delete program that overwrites the old data (or disk) rather than just deleting the file pointers.

[IainM]

Oh..

Is it better to do it directly with Samsung then yeah?

[Lourdes]

Oh..

Is it better to do it directly with Samsung then yeah?

Yes - Samsung Warranty Service - Rexo .

[GaryRW]

Yes - Samsung Warranty Service - Rexo .

I should post this tomorrow really, but I've RMA'd a drive to samsung/rexo this week. (I snapped the plastic bit off from the SATA connector....)

Anyway, had to register on the site to get an RMA number, did that Sunday, posted back Monday, their site registered as received on Tuesday, and today it's listed as returned.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow, but if it gets here, really can't complain!