Possible to Undo Raid 0?

[Lyle912]

I currently have an MSI GS70 2PE Stealth Pro gaming laptop. I'm finally upgrading and building my own my own gaming computer. I was wondering if it's possible to move one of the SSDs from my laptop to my new desktop? Currently my laptop has 3 SSDs running in Raid 0. I don't know much about the technical side of things, so I was just curious if it was possible to move all my data from the 3 SSDs to 2, and then safely remove the third one without losing any data? (Side note: I currently have all the data from the SSDs backed up to a portable hard drive.) Any help or advice would be very appreciated, thank you! 

 

(Don't know if the following information will help but: )

Drive: C:
Free Space: 193.3 GB
Total Space: 364.8 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: Intel Raid 0 Volume

[manikyath]

well, sure, what you need to do is copy off all data somewhere else, reconfigure the raid, and put the data back in a way you can still boot off of it.

 

but no, it's not a matter of pressing a magical "eject this drive from the raid" button 

[Davidwr80]

As far as I know, you can only undo a raid by formating the drives, because fragments of the data are spread across all drives

[Lyle912]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

well, sure, what you need to do is copy off all data somewhere else, reconfigure the raid, and put the data back in a way you can still boot off of it.

 

but no, it's not a matter of pressing a magical "eject this drive from the raid" button 

Can you go more into depth about "putting the data back in a way you can still boot off it" (or link me to an article / video that talks about it).

One of my concerns is that after re-configuring, and reloading the data and all that, I won't have Windows 10 anymore (maybe this is just me being stupid and new to all this), and I'll have to re-buy it since Windows came pre-installed on my laptop and I don't have a product key or anything.

[Davidwr80]

1 minute ago, Lyle912 said:

Can you go more into depth about "putting the data back in a way you can still boot off it" (or link me to an article / video that talks about it).

One of my concerns is that after re-configuring, and reloading the data and all that, I won't have Windows 10 anymore (maybe this is just me being stupid and new to all this), and I'll have to re-buy it since Windows came pre-installed on my laptop and I don't have a product key or anything.

Your product key is linked to your laptop's mainboard. It will acitvate itself automaticlly

[dizmo]

3 minutes ago, Lyle912 said:

Can you go more into depth about "putting the data back in a way you can still boot off it" (or link me to an article / video that talks about it).

One of my concerns is that after re-configuring, and reloading the data and all that, I won't have Windows 10 anymore (maybe this is just me being stupid and new to all this), and I'll have to re-buy it since Windows came pre-installed on my laptop and I don't have a product key or anything.

Isn't there a Windows code on your power brick or on the laptop itself?

What he means is connect an external drive, and move all of the data you want to keep onto it. (I think).

Then move the data back over.

[Zodiark1593]

A RAID is seen in software as one drive. Just mirror the entire thing onto another drive, boot off the new drive to ensure it works properly, then proceed to format RAID drives. 

[Lyle912]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

A RAID is seen in software as one drive. Just mirror the entire thing onto another drive, boot off the new drive to ensure it works properly, then proceed to format RAID drives. 

I'm sorry for this dumb question, but is booting off a new drive as symbol as making up backup onto an external hard drive (or just copy and pasting my entire C: Drive), then going into the bios and telling it to boot of that drive? Or will I have to make a drive just with windows on it? Again I apologize for being so new and bad at this stuff

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Lyle912 said:

I'm sorry for this dumb question, but is booting off a new drive as symbol as making up backup onto an external hard drive (or just copy and pasting my entire C: Drive), then going into the bios and telling it to boot of that drive? Or will I have to make a drive just with windows on it? Again I apologize for being so new and bad at this stuff

make a image of the boot drive using somethign like dd or macrum reflect. Then you can put that image on a external drive or a network share. Then delete the raid in the bios, and copy the image back.

[manikyath]

17 minutes ago, Lyle912 said:

Can you go more into depth about "putting the data back in a way you can still boot off it" (or link me to an article / video that talks about it).

One of my concerns is that after re-configuring, and reloading the data and all that, I won't have Windows 10 anymore (maybe this is just me being stupid and new to all this), and I'll have to re-buy it since Windows came pre-installed on my laptop and I don't have a product key or anything.

well, what i'd do is load up a linux usb stick to first shrink the partition with gparted, then use dd to copy it over to a scratch disk, set up the new raid, dd the image back over, and thne use gparted to expand the partition to the full size of the disk.

 

but i feel like that explanation is probably slightly over your head

[Mooshi]

Get a new drive, they're not that expensive.  Sandisk is like $75 for 240GB, it'd be far less stressful than dicking around raid. 

[Lyle912]

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

make a image of the boot drive using somethign like dd or macrum reflect. Then you can put that image on a external drive or a network share. Then delete the raid in the bios, and copy the image back.

 

11 minutes ago, manikyath said:

well, what i'd do is load up a linux usb stick to first shrink the partition with gparted, then use dd to copy it over to a scratch disk, set up the new raid, dd the image back over, and thne use gparted to expand the partition to the full size of the disk.

 

but i feel like that explanation is probably slightly over your head

So I think I understand everything, just want to make one last check. What I've done so far is: Cope and Paste my C Drive onto external hardrive, Use the windows backup tool to make a backup onto the external hardrive, and used Macrium Reflect to make an image now saved on the external hardrive. Now I'm gonna restart my computer, go into the BIOS, and find a way to delete the raid. Then go and remove 1 of the SSDs from my computer. Then reboot my computer from the external hardrive (still a bit confused on this part (i.e. if I'll need a specific folder with just the OS, or how'll the computer will be able to find my Windows 10 to boot from - I'm a noob I know)), and transfer my C Drive / Backup / Image from the external hard drive, back onto the now 2 SSDs. Then restart my computer again, go into the BIOS, and tell it to boot from the SSDs, and go on with my day and my new SSD. Is this all right, or am I missing a step  / completely wrong? Again thank you for all your help!

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Lyle912 said:

 

So I think I understand everything, just want to make one last check. What I've done so far is: Cope and Paste my C Drive onto external hardrive, Use the windows backup tool to make a backup onto the external hardrive, and used Macrium Reflect to make an image now saved on the external hardrive. Now I'm gonna restart my computer, go into the BIOS, and find a way to delete the raid. Then go and remove 1 of the SSDs from my computer. Then reboot my computer from the external hardrive (still a bit confused on this part (i.e. if I'll need a specific folder with just the OS, or how'll the computer will be able to find my Windows 10 to boot from - I'm a noob I know)), and transfer my C Drive / Backup / Image from the external hard drive, back onto the now 2 SSDs. Then restart my computer again, go into the BIOS, and tell it to boot from the SSDs, and go on with my day and my new SSD. Is this all right, or am I missing a step  / completely wrong? Again thank you for all your help!

Thats not gonna work.

 

Make sure you using less that half of the space of the drive, then go in diskmgmt, and shrink the volume.

 

Then boot into linux from a usb or network. Use dd to copy the raid volume to the hdd. THen delete the array and copy the image back and expand the partittion.

[Zodiark1593]

29 minutes ago, Lyle912 said:

I'm sorry for this dumb question, but is booting off a new drive as symbol as making up backup onto an external hard drive (or just copy and pasting my entire C: Drive), then going into the bios and telling it to boot of that drive? Or will I have to make a drive just with windows on it? Again I apologize for being so new and bad at this stuff

Mirroring a drive is what is required, and you will need a new drive for this. A copy/paste will not work. Mirroring your drive replicates your data, boot files and all settings onto the new drive. After that, it should be as simple as putting in this new drive and booting from it.