Start a Conversation

Unsolved

C

1 Message

392

June 16th, 2020 07:00

Migrate to new Windows installation on SSD

I have a Dell T7600 workstation with Perc310 Raid card and 3 drives: 1 SSD 256GB Samsung Raid 0 as C:\ Windows 10/64 installation and 2 1TB WD HDD as Raid1 array / Drive.  There are 4 drive bays in the tower - 3 of them occupied and 1 empty - connected to the Perc310.

My Windows installation is degrading - there are weird things that I just can't get to work right.  I tried to do an in-place reinstall without losing data or applications, and after about 4 attempts and getting an error that indicates that some driver prevented the update from completing, I decided instead to just create a new Windows installation on a new SSD and preserve the existing SSD Raid0 drive and the Raid1 array.  That way I can slowly migrate things over and not lose things like installation keys, drivers, etc. that I might need to reinstall some applications.

Initially I tried to unplug all 3 existing drives, plug in the new SSD and install Windows on it, not realizing that i needed to install the Perc Drivers during the install.  I got windows installed, but when I plugged in the other 3 drives and tried to boot the new installation I got a blue Windows screen (not BSOD, but close) saying that the installation wouldn't boot.  I used the Perc Hardware utilities and found that the new drive was marked Foreign and wasn't playing nice with the others.

I went back into the Perc setup and was able to get a third Raid0 VD set up on the new drive. 

My question - what's the best way to do what I'm trying to accomplish without having the new drive join the existing SSD as part of the array or without jeopardizing the data on the existing 3 drives?  I have them all backed up but as anyone who has ever done a restore from backups can tell you, that is a stressful and time consuming experience on a good day.

To be clear, what I want is :

Drive 0: 256GB SSD with original (mildly corrupted) Windows installation

Drive 1 and 2 : 1TB Raid drives in Raid 1 config
Drive 3 : 1TB SSD with new Windows installation

Then I can use the Perc utility to boot either from Drive 0 or Drive 3 as needed until I get Drive 3 up and running the way I want. At that point, I will reformat Drive 0 as additional storage and make Drive 3 the primary boot device.

No Responses!
No Events found!

Top