moving to new scsi controller

[Sen_6]

Hi,
i need to move the current Hdd running on windows 2000 to a new scsi controller and enable hardware mirror on it.
can i know whats the fastest way to do it?
thanks

[Terri Harris]

What HP computer do you have? What type of SCSI controller is the current hard drive connected to?
Is the new SCSI controller a RAID controller? This will be required if you are going to do a hardware mirror. What kind of SCSI card is it?

[Sen_6]

its a Proliant ML530.

the current hard drive is connected to onboard scsi controller.

the new scsi controller is a smart array 641

[Terri Harris]

You will not be able to move the drive to a RAID controller without wiping everything out on the hard drive. Hard drives must first be configured into a RAID array when connected to a Smart Array controller - then the OS is installed. So with hardware RAID there is no option to move a drive from a SCSI controller to a RAID controller and keep the existing OS and data.

[Sen_6]

if i were to make an image of the existing hdd and clone it to the new controller, do you think it will work?

[Terri Harris]

The problem is that the image of the existing drive is a drive with no RAID configuration...so no it would not work to image a drive running off a standard SCSI drive...then try to use that image on a new drive connected to a RAID controller. Same problem.

[Sen_6]

i thought that the RAID configuration is handled by the scsi controller and so the software on the hdd need not need to install any updates?

[Terri Harris]

In order for a hard drive to work on a RAID controller (hardware RAID), the RAID controller must format the hard drive first. This creates a specific geometry on the drive itself, which is different from a drive formatted with standard SCSI (not RAID). So do you see why you cannot move a drive off a SCSI controller to a RAID controller?

Try moving the hard drive to a RAID controller and see what happens - or do the image (safer) and see what happens. The RAID controller will not be able to understand the format on the drive.

[Sen_6]

this is really a bad news for me.. as i need to redo the entire system.. :(