Disabling RAID-0 for 3 SSDs working as single boot drive

[Modernaire]

I'm getting a gaming laptop that has 3 SSDs in a RAID-0 configuration. I shudder at the thought of one of these SSDs dying off and forcing me to RMA, and I'm not that obsessed with speed that I feel the RAID-0 is really necessary for my enjoyment of the rig.

As far as I know, as soon as I get it, I need to image the OS, then turn off RAID in the BIOS, then reimage the OS onto one of the now-separate SSD drives.

I just wondered, since I've never attempted this:

1. What should I use to image the OS? (It'll be Windows 8.1)
2. So let's say I have the image -- after turning off RAID-0 in the BIOS, the OS is going to be nuked so how can I even boot to reimage the OS on to the now-separated SSD I choose? Some kind of boot/imaging utility?

I'm just a bit concerned that I'll brick this thing not 1 day after getting it and will have to RMA to get it restored and then attempt this all over again. Any help is MUCH appreciated. As far as I know the recovery disk will not allow me to just install Windows 8.1 cold onto a new drive; I have to use the image method.

 

[USAFRet]

You need to create an image of it on some other storage space.

Then, booting from the imaging/cloning DVD, port that back on to one of the drives.
CloneZilla would probably do this.

What laptop are you getting that has 3 SSD's in it, already in a RAID config?

 

[Modernaire]

MSI GT70 Dominator Pro 888. It's overkill (the 8 GB of VRAM is just excessively stupid), but it has a lot of bells and whistles over the Asus G750JZ. I really don't game that much anymore, but my Asus M50VM X-1 is going on 6 years now and I'm too used to having a "portable" monster. It comes with three 128 GB mSATA SSDs in RAID-0, and a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD that's mercifully a separate logical drive (I would have pulled my hair out if they'd made that hybrid).

I found http/h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03544793&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en specifically for Win 8.1. I guess I've thankfully not had to recover from catastrophes enough that I'm not familiar with the whole process. It's still kind of witchcraft to me that I could use this on a 64-GB USB key and that after breaking the RAID, the machine will still be able to boot off that USB key. But looks like this'll fix me up. Thanks! Hopefully I haven't gotten any of this wrong.