Question: Rebuild OS from RAID 1 like factory image

[blackbirdz]

Hi all, I have a server Win 2008 R2 with RAID 1 config with LSI RAID Card. I want to set up Active Directory (AD) and other roles in this server. Since I am not an expert there is potential something went wrong and I might want to restore the server to the original state like you restore an image. Since I have RAID 1, is it possible to do this:

1. Before messing around with the server, I took 1 of the drive out (e.g. Drive #2). The system will detect that 1 of the drive is missing/fail and the server is running under RAID 1 (degraded mode, 1 drive only).

2. I install AD. If installation is not going well or if I decided to return to the original state, I plugged in drive #2 that I initially took off for rebuild so that drive #2 will mirror to drive #1. This way, the server is back to the original state.

Is above possible?
If so, how do I make sure that the system will not mirror drive #1 to drive #2?

Thanks.

[labtech]

The most recent active drive, #1, will replicate onto drive #2 when reinserting back drive #2. Needless to say, that is poor practice overall. You could pull that off safely, if actually doing the sync manually by creating a clone from drive #2 onto drive #1.

A better approach is to create a clone or image of the drive and individual file backup, alter/install whatever intended and check all is good. If there is a problem, then restore from the clone onto your RAID 1.

Perhaps best approach is to have a complete system image and restore from there if something goes wrong.