Windows 7 Pending HDD Failure - Need assistance with procedure to change C: to alternate internal HDD

[MarcAntonyy]

Hi guys,

I am running W7 64 on a raid0 setup with two 74GB raptors as my C: Recently their performance has begun to wane significantly and now I'm being spammed by S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring saying failure is imminent and to back up immediately. I am not a system builder and while I'm plenty capable of handling things in a software environment, I don't know how to uninstall and reinstall HDDs or do much internally aside from popping in RAM and GPUs.

So here's the thing, I also have a 500GB Hitachi internal D: which is the drive I've been using to backup to the whole time. Additionally, I have a 1TB MyBook external drive.

I do not have any available funds at the moment and need to find a way to bypass the failing raptors and turn the 500GB into the C: Its an EVGA mainboard, so I have access to the BIOS, but I'm puzzled about what to do next and how to pull this off.

Any help would be most appreciated - thanks in advance.

 

[MarcAntonyy]

Ok, let me be more specific. Is the W7 backup and disc I have of any use to me at this point, or should I just go ahead and delete it to make space and perform a fresh installation on the current D: ?

 

[Saltgrass]

Normally, you could use an image you had made with Windows Backup, or something else, to re-image your install to a new drive. But since you are going from a Raid setup to a basic drive, I do not know if Windows Backup will work, but I doubt it.

Unless someone else has another suggestion, you will probably have to clean a partition on the drive you want to use and reinstall. If you have data on the drive you want to keep, you could change the partitions and set it up with one for Windows 7 and whatever else you want, but the install will delete all data in the Windows Partition.

When you reinstall, make sure you have the Drive set to primary in the bios so the boot files will be placed on it and not one of the others, or disconnect the other drives.