HP Gen 8 server ML350E with B120i Raid controller

I have given up on Acronis after spending a few days going round in circles

All I could find on Google was Acronis 11.5 has no support for the B120i Controller because the driver isn’t open source.

Can any one recommend a bare metal solution that can see the raid array from a boot CD to create and/or restore an image without screwing the raid.

The only work around I have come up with seems risky.

It involves a spare drive and caddy. Basically pull one of the mirrored drives before switch on,

let the start-up ACU discover the missing drive….Replace with spare…Raid rebuilds and after an
hour or so the raid is rebuilt and ready to go….Tuck the pulled drive away for a rainy day.

Thanks for any help

Thread on the B120i
http://www.tricksguide.com/enable-b120i-hp-smart-array-controller-in-ge…

Hello,
I have four new HP Gen8 Server with HP B120i Controller RAID-1 Configuration. I want test the restore but when i test the restore with "Universal Restore" i can´t see the RAID-1 Configuration. I load the driver form HP Support website and load it in Universal Restore. It dosn´t work, can anyone help me.

Hi Joachim,

Was your Raid array OK after the boot from the Universal Restore media?

Asked the question on the HP Forums.
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/ML350E-gen-8-wit…

Good luck

Bill

I know this thread is a little old but still is relevant. This problem started with the B110i Raid controller long before gen8. The B120i is basically the same controller. It's been a problem for years. I tried to make a custom WinPE boot CD with the proper drivers, but I failed.

Acronis support and HP really need to get together and work this out, or I will no longer be able to recommend the product for this line of servers/raid controllers.

Please help people resolve this issue.

Scott,

Hi I never resolved this issue.

The big problem I found was that the action of booting the array with the Acronis boot media killed the array.

Nothing would get it back...So it was a re install.

After 3 days of build, test and destroy with Acronis I gave up.

Good luck

Acronis support and HP
Please help people resolve this issue

Hmm.. I wish I had read this before lashing out on 11.5 with Universal Restore just to clone from a desktop to a HP with B120i....

I've just recommended three licenses to a client this morning to replace his rubbish backup software, with the spiel about universal restore giving him the option to move to newer hardware if need be. What else isn't "universal"?

Hi,
Sorry for re-up, but did someone found a solution to restore a acronis backup on a B120i RAID controller ?

Nope, gave up. Apparently the drivers are "HP Proprietary" and as such Acronis can do it.

Thanks for reply !
So.... Only have my eyes to cry.....

The solution to this is actually really easy. I found lots of complicated posts about how to create a 'slip-streamed' boot CD with the drivers with all sorts of complex looking scripts. Whereas these super complicated 'Linux style' routes probably work you don't need to do any of this - the solution is as follows:

Just create a WinPE disc with the default settings in Acronis using the 'Boot Media Creator' creator tool. Don't add any drivers just do a default disc.

Add the following driver to your backup drive: cp033111.exe from the HP site which is here: https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_abaa5952034546cf8b66d214e9 . Confusingly HP do several drivers for the Gen8 but only this one works. I am restoring off of a USB drive so just added the driver to that. You need to extract it using something like 7Zip before you do.

Load up your WinPE CD and select to manage the local machine. Just click on 'Load driver' after booting up. At this point you can select the .inf file from your local storage (your USB backup drive) and after a few seconds everything works. I used this on a RAID and it was correctly identified as one drive. All restored perfectly - even automatically adding the incremental backups.

Sorry this is a bit late - but I only had this problem myself last night as I still love the Gen8. 

Sam,

thanks a lot for taking the time to share your solution with the community!