After yet another crash on my Windows 10 PC I decided to put a second hard drive on to mirror the first. Easy-peasy installation, according to windows. Open "Disc Management", Right-click the primary drive with data on it (C: in my case), and select "Add Mirror".

Except there is no "Add Mirror" on the drop-down.

The Disc Manager shows the new external hard drive ready for action.

Suggestions?

quote Originally posted by sspeedstreet: Except there is no "Add Mirror" on the drop-down.

Is "Add Mirror" not listed at all, or is it there but grayed out?

quote Originally posted by Patrick: Is "Add Mirror" not listed at all, or is it there but grayed out?

It is not there at all.

quote Originally posted by sspeedstreet: It is not there at all.

I will ask Jen if she knows anything about it.

On my Win7 Pro system, any drive I right-click on in Disk Management displays "Add Mirror..." in the drop-down box, although it's grayed out.

Sorry, can't add anything further.

Do you have Win10 Home or Pro? I don't think Home supports RAID1.

You do not want to do a software mirror.

Find out if your PC has the ability to do hardware mirroring.
Be very careful as you may have to wipe the drive to make it a mirror set.

quote Originally posted by williegoat: Do you have Win10 Home or Pro? I don't think Home supports RAID1.

If that's so, I'm out of luck the easy way. Mine's Home.

Thanks for the help.

quote Originally posted by Jake_Dragon: You do not want to do a software mirror. Find out if your PC has the ability to do hardware mirroring. Be very careful as you may have to wipe the drive to make it a mirror set.

Software RAID1 saved my data once. After being up for three years, I had a HD failure. I bought two new drives (just to be safe), rebuilt my array and was up and running without a hitch. Of course I was not using Windoze. But there really is no substitute for regular backups.

I ditched my PC for a laptop a couple of years ago. Wish there was a good way to RAID this.

quote Originally posted by Monkeyman: I ditched my PC for a laptop a couple of years ago. Wish there was a good way to RAID this.

Just do regular backups. You can get a 2TB portable drive for $50.

Win7 and later Home versions does not allow Mirroring disks and why won't see this option. (Think XP and Vista Home and related did not allow Mirroring too.)

Mirroring needs Dynamic disks.
Any disk containing an active C: drive may not be able to convert to Dynamic from Basic w/in Windows. I have to check this later.

WinNTx had Software Raid forever and does work but you pay a penalty in slower disk access times. If you have slow disks now, will be worse often noticeable worse w/ software Raid.

Many MoBo have Raid 1 and 5 in hardware when AHCI is used and Not available "legacy" disk operation. You have to build the set before installing anything software.
Read the MoBo/system owners doc.
Even then Win Home versions may not support this either.

⚠️ Warning: A lot of HD and SSD made for Retail Customers (Like many Blue and Green label drives) Do Not have Firmware in them to support any Raid. Example: May seem to work until to try to restore a disk set.
Many 2+ TB drives have problems w/ Raid related to a lawsuit. WD and think Seagate are being sued over how data is stored on disk for some Red and other drives.

MS removes more and more local backup options even from Win7 Pro/Ult and WinX Pro.
Win7 was first to remove all tape backup including all Win Drivers to run the devices not just removing the option to backup in software.
Now MS wants you to back to "The Cloud" w/ monthly fees and little to no privacy protection.
If you add any packaged NAS from WD et al or even just external drive many have Backup software.

External USB3 drives run almost as fast as SATA drives and make fast backup can be taken offline to protect from malware. I have 2 2TB "laptop" size units for this reason.

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