ASUS G75VW windows 7 64bit 2HDD 750GB@7200 ex RAID 0 Now want to install a 750 SSD, no RAID + 750 Seagate HDD
Dear friends,
I've been in this forum before with other backup/restore problems, but that was ages ago. I then had the 2012 version and made incremental backups since then. I use 3TB external USB 3.0 Drives but havent needed o restore my system since then.
However, a few days ago I updated the Bios of my ASUS G75VW to what the manufacturer recommended, but when I restarted the computer I just had a black screen with a little white dash flashing at me from the top of my monitor. I immediately inserted my Acronis Recovery Manager CD and sure enough I had the option to restore my computer from the latest full backup done a month earlier. I "eventually" managed to restore everything but the RAID 0 was gone, all data was crammed into one of the HDD's and the other wasn't even recognized by windows. The computer worked "almost"perfectly apart from the fact that I only had 125 MB left in the mentioned drive and what is more important, the boot section was not working so I had to introduce the Windows CD to start from the CD drive.
Finally I decided to make a clean installation, starting from scratch, by removing one drive and installing Windows from the CD. Now everything is working fine, my only HUGE problem is that I have lost all my data, programs, personal files etc, etc, rendering my Acronis True Image as a "not so true" backup....
Anyway, since I'm fed-up with the fragility of a RAID 0 I have purchased an SSD (Samsung 840 EVO 750GB), I have also upgraded Acronis to the latest version 2014, and my intention is to backup my actual drive C:\ to one of the external USB 3.0 3TB drives and then remove the internal HDD and replace it by the new SSD; once this is done I plan to reinstall one of the 750GB HDD's to work together with the SSD drive, but not in RAID 0 (not possible anyway), but as a two drive laptop C:\ & D:\. I hope the SSD drive with the OS and main programs installed, should make the whole system run a lot faster than my ex-RAID 0.
So my question is "simple".... How do I proceed in a step by step manner, where making an image of my actual HDD and transferring it to the SSD seems to be the most problematic (at least to me), since adding the other HDD later on should be straight forward.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Best regards
Charles
I have lost all my data, programs, personal files etc...
Charles, that statement is a bit confusing, since you should be able to restore your files/data from the backup to your new installation, or even from the semi restored old Hd. If you have the program installation disks, you are almost set since you can re-install those. One other time saving item, is if you get the original installation working (as you described), use windows transfer settings process (google it) to restore your settings in the new computer.
Thanks a lot to both Scott & Floyd.
Please bear with me that I am not a computer "nerd", so try and understand that I don't understand.... some of your questions & or replies.
Having said that, I gather from Scott that the restore must be done in manual mode and that makes sense, so I will write it down in my "To do List".
Scott when you say "If you're going to stick with ati, I'd use the newer version, it's a bit less buggy", I'm a bit concerned, because I just purchased the 2014 version (yesterday...), so I hope there is nothing "newer" than that....as I said, "I have also upgraded Acronis to the latest version 2014"....
About the BIOS update I carried out, I feel it never recognized the RAID 0, so my believe is that you are NOT supposed to update it when having a RAID 0 or it was just corrupted during the process of download/uncompress/install; I learned since then, that a new BIOS must be directly downloaded to a FAT32 formatted USB stick and decompressed there, otherwise it can "borrow" some extra flakes from windows data that render it a useless piece of data. What I did was I downloaded it from the ASUS tech dept. for my registered laptop, then uncompressed it in my Desktop and used a windows based device EZ-Flash to replace the old BIOS.. since then I have learned that it seems to be a general consensus that it is crazy to use that windows based program to update your BIOS... (I learned the hard way).
My restore CD's (three in total) did not contain the RAID 0 information because this laptop I purchased in HIDevolution was tailor made for me with two same size HDD's in a RAID 0; it originally came with only one 750 GB @ 7200rpm HDD. About the type of RAID 0 I had, I'm not sure, but my guess is that the motherboard comes with a hardware chip of some sort so you can configure the type of RAID you want. I know it is an American Megatrends board, but that's all I know.
What I don't want to do any longer is restore my computer using any of my Acronis True Image backups, because even though I would regain all my data, I would also inherit the corrupted files that probably had a lot to do with my computer crashing. I don't know if I mentioned it, but it all came about when I just could't update my Photoshop CS6 or my NVIDIA GeForce GTX..... Now with this clean (and slow restore process), I have managed to update both updates straight away!!
I don't know what I will do with those old ATI backup files, that right now occupy the best part of two 3TB USB external drives, but if I find a way to dump at least the last one into an external drive and at be able to recover my personal files I will be more than happy, but I doubt it can be done
Anyway, I have step one, DO A MANUAL RESTORE, but what else?
Best regards and thanks again,
Charles
If you have ati installed and the backups are on a drive connected to the pc, then you can use windows explorer to navigate to them and click on one and it will mount as a virtual drive (the backup will act like a read-only drive) and you can copy off any files you want.
I sure do Scott, right now I would like to "open" the latest backup I did about a month ago, but not sure what you mean when you say "click on one and it will mount as a virtual drive"... Could you please elaborate a bit more on what I have to do? If I can do what you say, you might have saved my a lot of aggravation and hard work plus the fact that I can recover documents I now consider lost for ever...
This 3TB drive is connected to my computer via a USB 3.0 cable and connector; I opened windows explorer and I have several folders, one being My backups (created by Acronis True Image 2012) in that folder I have a compressed file I called: "10.11.2013 full backup ASUS incremental manual.tib" and is about 500 GB in size.
Thanks a million,
Charles
Charles,
Scott has given you the how tos, and this may be of help. In the user manual ATIH2014_userguide_en-US.pdf para 6.2 it steps through how to access files from a backup.....Just to make sure, user files should not cause crashes.
Sorry guys not to reply earlier, but have been too busy restoring everything "by hand"... Checking my serial # for each program and downloading them from the vendor; I guess I'm about half way through. Just in case I have already done the first ATI backup of the system with one of the HDD's I have, leaving the other compartment empty till I get my Samsung 840 EVO 750GB unit tomorrow.
What I wanted to tell you right now, is how happy and grateful I am to both of you for showing me how to recover folders and files from the *.tib file; I HAD NO IDEA THAT COULD BE DONE!!! And sure enough it works just fine. So THANK YOU "senores", because I have been able to recover most of my personal files..... I do however have a comment to make about the way ATI 2014 allows you to fish out files and folders, (unless I'm doing something wrong), the window ..or explorer that opens for you to choose which files or folders you want back has the whole lot selected as a default and as you search for single folders it takes forever each time you open a directory; IMHO it would be better if the program started with all the tick boxes un-selected and allow you to browse and tick every box you wanted; then you could go get a coffee and let ATI restore select the files and or folders you chose.... just a thought....
The other nuisance I have is that no longer have my MS Office 2007 CD, so I don't know how to restore this basic program I use every day. I guess that selecting the appropriate files and folders from the *.tib it might work... but who knows which or where, and I'm sure that even if you knew, it would still give you trouble with the authenticity and all the updates that program has gone through since I purchased many years ago...
One last question (if you don't mind), Is it worth getting the Premium version of the ATI 2014? And if so... why?
Best regards... and Merry Christmas (soon)
Charles
I don't use the file by file feature except to get an old copy of an individual file form time to time, but can't you do a select all/deselect all and then go from there?
You won't be able to install MS Office without the installer files or installation disk. If MS Office came with your pc, then the installer might be in a hidden partition on the original disk image. If not, then you are out of luck. You can't merely copy over files; you have to have the correct Registry entries too. And you can't merely copy over the old Registry files because those won't be up-to-date for what you have done on the new windows installation.
If you don't need to migrate from on PC to another, then you probably have no need for the Premium version-- but check out the Acronis web page and decide if the description of features sounds needed. Remember, if you are going to migrate to new hardware, you will probably need the newest version of ATI available at the time and new versions come out EVERY SINGLE YEAR. So if you ever need premium, you might wait to buy it when you need it.
Premium also lets you deal with GUID and Dynamic Disks -- Dynamic Disks are a software method of avoiding better hardware ;) If you don't know what those are, then don't worry about it.
Thanks a lot Scott,
That's what I was wondering, if you CAN do a select all/deselect all, because I couldn't find it. One way or the other, it is great news that I can recover individual files, it's a great relief for me.
Regarding MS Office, I was sure it wouldn't be possible to restore as a working program, as you say, the Registry files control all the MS programs and there is no way you can by-pass that. Worst thing is that Microsoft has now changed their sales policy, stopping all together the updates and each copy being valid for only one PC; the other option they call something like Office 365, where you don't stop paying... Not for me thank you.
For the time being I don't plan on changing my computer, so thanks for the hint, but what if I install the ATI 2014 on the other computer I have; can I do that? And if the answer is yes, can I then create an image of that PC so I can recover it when ever I want? If the answer is no, will the premium version allow me to use the program and create backups of both my PC's?
Thanks again,
Charles
If you don't want to pay MS prices you can always get a decent complete office suite (Open Office) entirely for free:
http://www.openoffice.org/>
It was originally an office suite that Sun Microsystems bought for in-house use. It then released it free to the public to cut down MS business. Oracle took over Sun and closed the project (I think the mere notion of giving something for free was such anathema to Oracle that it went into business shock). However, Apache continues the office suite today.
I've been somewhat corrected. Actually, Libre Office is the offshoot that had the original "Open Office" crew from Sun and has been making the most of the office suite. Libre Office was the original programming crew that broke off on its own when Oracle arrived and began messing with things. Oracle sent the leftovers of the project at Sun to Apache.
Charles, to get back Office 2007 you might be able to download a copy. What you need is your key....
http://www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/
You might be able to find the key in the backup, but that would be a google search. It is prudent to WRITE THOSE DOWN early on.....but if you have a working copy of windows with the program you can retrieve the keys (ie search magic jelly bean). Microsoft products keys allow the same version to be used...
Cheers
Floydo
Scott, thanks for the Open Office free tour you have given me, but seriously, I will have to think about in depth, because Microsoft is becoming more like Megahard... And I can't afford to pay for one of their new releases. I have tried hard using the Magic Jelly Bean (free download) floydo mentions and I have even uncompressed the latest ATI *.tib I had, to one of my huge 3TB external USB Drives, but this little program does not alow me to search anything that is not within my hard drives; If I try I get the following message: "Can't load registry hive from ....[my USB image copy]... A required privilege is not held by the client"..... What a pity; I wonder if the purchased full version would look a bit further...
But anyway I'm now confronted by a huge dilemma; I have FINALLY managed to install the SSD drive and have installed Windows 7 64 bit all manually without using Samsung's software or my Acronis True Image 2014. The normal thing now would be to just start the Acronis restore and get back all my programs and files (only a couple of days old), but I'm sooo scared I end up with another disaster, that I don't know if I should just spend another three days just installing one by one all my programs.... scary prospect, but I think to my self, what is the point of having ATI if I don't use it when I should. What would you do?
Right now the HDD with the image is waiting by the side of my laptop, connected to the USB port: have reinstalled the Acronis True Image 2014 and even made a start-up CD "Should I go or should I stay"...as the song goes.
If I do decide to carry out the full restore from the HDD to the SSD, what are the most important steps I should carry out prior to pressing the RESTORE button??? Please help me decide.
Best regards,
Charles ASUS G75VW i7, 12 GB DRAM, 1 750GB Samsung 840EVO + two 750 GB @ 7200 rpm HDD's now patiently waiting for the result, since the idea is to install one of them and share the computer with the SSD.
I might be misunderstanding you when you say, "restore." But if you made a backup of all the partitions on the windows disk, you could restore them and the get back your programs. But you have made a new install of Windows 7 so you'll have to install each program. You can copy your data files (docs, jpgs, mp3s, etc.) but not system or program files.
If you try to restore any of the backed up partitions, you'll overwrite the new install you just made.
Dear Scott,
But even if I overwrite, that won't bother me as long as the restored image works, because it will contain just exactly what I need, programs, emails, documents and so on, and not a bare windows copy I now have on the SSD... What worries me is that an HDD based backup or image, has problems when restoring everything to the new SSD.
What I do wonder is if the new SSD needs all those partitions created on an HDD where almost 1/3 of its size is created for backup purposes...
Best regards,
Charles
Thank You Acronis True Image 2014!
No, don't think I did the restore, it's not that, it is just that when I was decided to try out the image restore (I had from my 3 day backup of one of my HHD's) and I chose the souce and the destination, Acronis came up with a warning I had never seen before and it stated: "The selected disk will be restored as is (disk's layout will remain GPT). After operation completion, operating systems will NOT boot from the destination disk in BIOS"....
So I of course immediately stopped and did some info gathering, where I found this:
BIOS-booted system, GPT, UEFI supported
In this step of the wizard, you need to select the destination hard disk.
Currently your system contains:
System: BIOS-booted
Source partition style: GPT
Operating system on the source disk: Windows, booting in UEFI is supported
If you migrate the system to the selected disk:
System: not bootable in BIOS
Partition style: GPT
Operating system: Windows, booting in UEFI is supported
Disk size: the entire disk space is available
Warning! After migration, the operating system will not be able to boot from the destination disk in BIOS. If you want to boot from the destination disk after migration, you need to enable UEFI booting in your system (see Unified Extensible Firmware Interface section), and then restart the operation.
You can find more information about the migration procedure in Migration method section.
So unless someone can tell me how I can make this backup create a BIOS bootable image copy, I will continue with the tedious program installation.
I have read a recent message in this forum explaining how to enable UEFI Boot rebooting from the Windows 7 disc and entering the BIOS in the boot section, but my 223 bios version does not have the UEFI: BD-DRom option, I only have Launch PXE OpROM that I can enable or disable
And of course in either case I don't even know what those terms mean...
Can someone elaborate and maybe have a way for me to change the Bios so my computer restarts after the image restore?
In the mean time I will continue feeding the SSD with data, just so I don't waste my time; thank god I am on sick leave and I don't really have work to do with my computer, otherwise this would have been the most expensive computer crash I've had in years (time is money as you all well know).
Right now I'm all ears and have all the needed time to restore my G75VW to its original state (but with a super fast 750GB SSD, NO RAID THANKS! and one of my original 750GB @ 7200rpm)
And thanks again to all who have helped me ease my burden...
Charles
Your system might have a BIOS and it might not. Newer systems use UEFI instead of BIOS -- it's confusing because a lot of folks call UEFI a kind of BIOS. It's actually something instead of BIOS just like a PC is something instead of an Apple and a truck is something other than a car. It's further confusing because some pc manufacturers refer to "BIOS UEFI" or "BIOS/UEFI" because they have both built into their motherboard and the user can choose which to boot with. BIOS and the newer more powerful UEFI are firmware systems for booting PCs and handling all the hardware.
Intel's Graphic Unique IDentifier or GUID partitioning system, uses a GUID Partition Table or GPT. It is a system for partitioning hard drives. It's better than the older system (called MBR) in a number of ways, of which size is only one -- you can have much bigger disks with GPT partitioning but there are other advantages too. The older partitioning system that GPT is making obsolete is called MBR or Master Boot Record partitioning. BIOS is too old of a firmware system to handle GPT (GUID Partition Table) disks. A BIOS computer cannot boot from a GPT disk. A newer pc with UEFI can handle GPT didsks just fine--UEFI is designed to handle GPTs.
The warning you're getting is telling you that the original image is of a GPT disk and if you restore to a BIOS system as a GPT disk, it won't be bootable. If you boot with BIOS, you can't use the GPT disk. If you boot with UEFI, you can. ATI can restore a GPT disk image as an MBR so that it can boot on a BIOS pc. IF you can enter your BIOS/UEFI and set it boot up UEFI instead of BIOS (or Legacy) then you can boot with a GPT disk.
MBR vs GPT--what's the diff: With GPT you can format disk of more than 1 million terabytes! MBR is limited to two terabytes and only 1 primary and 3 extended partitions per hard disk. GPT allows up to 128 partitions per hard disk. Also MBR tables are more easily corrupted than GPTs--something to do with Failover Clusters, but lets not get into that). So use GPT if your PC can handle it but not all systems can.
Charles, to get back Office 2007 you might be able to download a copy. What you need is your key....
http://www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/You might be able to find the key in the backup, but that would be a google search. It is prudent to WRITE THOSE DOWN early on.....but if you have a working copy of windows with the program you can retrieve the keys (ie search magic jelly bean). Microsoft products keys allow the same version to be used...
Cheers
Floydo
Dear floyd, Now that I have more or less installed most of my main programs, have the Samsung 840 EVO 750GB SSD working with the OS and all the basic programs, with the other drive slot having one of my 750 HDD's and configured as totally separate units (C: and D:), my only HUGE concern is to try and recover the MS Office registry number or serial# from one of the many *.tib files I still keep. I loved the idea of using the Magic Jelly Bean, but as I mentioned in one of my messages, the free version does not allow me to search into the *.tib backup and even when I restored the tib file into the same 3TB external USB drive and had ALL the files at my disposal, Magic J. B. would not let me search for registry data in that location... So my question is very simple; if I get the purchased version, will that one let me carry out the search from my external USB 3.0 3TB drive? and if not, do you know of a program that will?? Office is, apart from my main work programs Photoshop, and Lightroom, the most important program I need for my daily work flow. I will be VERY thankful to you if you can help me out in this matter.
Best regards and Merry Christmas
PS anyone else that knows about this matter can also forward ther opinion/ideas, by all means
Charles (Spanish Flyer)
Charles, to get back Office 2007 you might be able to download a copy. What you need is your key....
http://www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/You might be able to find the key in the backup, but that would be a google search. It is prudent to WRITE THOSE DOWN early on.....but if you have a working copy of windows with the program you can retrieve the keys (ie search magic jelly bean). Microsoft products keys allow the same version to be used...
Cheers
Floydo
Dear floyd, Now that I have more or less installed most of my main programs, have the Samsung 840 EVO 750GB SSD working with the OS and all the basic programs, with the other drive slot having one of my 750 HDD's and configured as totally separate units (C: and D:), my only HUGE concern is to try and recover the MS Office registry number or serial# from one of the many *.tib files I still keep. I loved the idea of using the Magic Jelly Bean, but as I mentioned in one of my messages, the free version does not allow me to search into the *.tib backup and even when I restored the tib file into the same 3TB external USB drive and had ALL the files at my disposal, Magic J. B. would not let me search for registry data in that location... So my question is very simple; if I get the purchased version, will that one let me carry out the search from my external USB 3.0 3TB drive? and if not, do you know of a program that will?? Office is, apart from my main work programs Photoshop, and Lightroom, the most important program I need for my daily work flow. I will be VERY thankful to you if you can help me out in this matter.
Best regards and Merry Christmas
PS anyone else that knows about this matter can also forward ther opinion/ideas, by all means
Charles (Spanish Flyer)
Charles,
Suggest you spend some time with google to answer the question on extracting the serial/key to programs from a tib. Another way to do this perhaps would be to restore a backup then go looking with MJB or equivalent keyfinder. Or use Acronis to mount the tib as a virtual drive (one of the advertised features) then go looking.....
Here is a discussion on this
OK. PROBLEM IS SOLVED. In summary:
1) old computer motherboard died
4) took hard drive out of HP Pavillion and put it in external HD reader enclosure so i could see old hard drive
5-C. Magic Jelly Bean found it for free: www.magicjellybean.com They key as Herb noted was that you must run as adminstrator.
Here is another place to look
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/productkeysactivation/tp/topkeyfinder.htm
Thanks floydo,
I just did that, but in the end in order to have access to other non windows or OS based files and folders I had to go and pay about $ 28 and purchased Recover Keys....
The great thing about it is that I not only found the Office registration files, but tons of others from the rest of the programs, some of which I had forgotten to install!!
Now I have back my Office 2007 and a few filters for Adobe CS6 I had totally forgotten about.....
And I have *.txt files that hold all the info for future reference.
I think I'm just about done and I would have never achieved it without your and others help. By the way I don't want to forget Scott Hieber, who really gave me a lesson on how not to get confussed with all those different Drive terms... Had to read his message "thrise" to understand what he was talking about...
Best regards to all and Merry Christmas