Validation of .tib

Hank, welcome to these user forums.

If you can open Windows Explorer and navigate to where your full backup .tib file is stored, then you can right-click on the file, select the option for True Image, then select the option to Validate.  See screen shot below.

The alternative is to do this within the ATIH 2016 GUI where if you click on the (V) icon to the right of the task name that created the full backup file, you can choose the Validate option.  See second screen shot.

Thnaks Steve -- Thanks to Microsoft and W7 video contributions -that circle with a V inside is virtually invisible on my computer - I had clicked on "Entire Pc... ad nauseum with nil effect .

Ok I have validated the backup file - now can you give me ananswer to the secomnd part of my question ??

 it also suggests that you put in a "spare"  hard drive and try a restore even if you have validated the file.

So I can do that on a drive I have that was the mirror of a RAID 1  but do not know what is satill on that drive - (and do not care).

Is it OK to just use that drive as the test "spare" - That is - it overwrites everything  on that drive with no intervention from me ???

If the restore worked it should be able to boot fromthat drive and act just asit was whne the backup was made ???

Thanks    Hank

HI Hank, I posted in your other thread.  Technically yes, you can. However, it is not a good idea to do a full disk restore and leave both drives in the sytem at teh same time when you boot the OS.  The bios will see them as the same exact drive and may cause issues when booting if they are both internal SATA drives.  If one is an internal drive and your restored drive is UsB, you won't be able to boot to the USB anyway (Microsoft limitation), so the only way to truly validate a full OS disk restore would be to have it internal and attempt to boot up with it.  

Ok - maybe I am not asking the right questions.

History.  This system was running two 1 TB drives in a RAID1 mirror. I was given some bum / incomplete info by Dell on breaking the RAID . Mainly that apparently you MUST have both drives in the system when you break the RAID 1. I only had one drive in the system. But BEFORE I did anything - I made the full backup with ATIH2016 and have that .tib file on an external USB hard drive. What appears to happen is that when you try to break the RAID 1 without the secomd drive  the Intel  RAID controller either removes or corrupts a file C:\Windows\servicing\Sessions\300108~1.XML which kills System Restore . I tried safe mode etc and a Microsoft Update repiar and it always comes up with this file being corrupt or missing . When I navigate to sessions ,  there in fact is no  sessions\300108~1.XML - every file is in the 308XXX series.

At this point neither Microsoft Update nor System Restore are functional. They were when I did the ATIH2016 full disc backup file

What I want  to do is to restore the computer to the condition it was in before I tried to break the Raid without the second drive. Then (Hopefully) I will have a working drive just as if nothing had happened.  If that works , I can either put the second drive in and let the RAID mirror the "good" drive (or just restore the same .tib backup file to that drive as well. Should be the same as the mirror. BUT FIRST I have to be SURE the restore is good and all else is still functional - RAID is a second issue.

That is why I keep asking if I take a drive , do a restore to it with the ATIH2016 .tib file does ATIH2016 restore wipe the drive and simply put the backup on the drive or do I have  to do something else like wipe the drive first (I have 3 identical 1 TB drives I can "play" with -one is theone in use now) and the backup is only about 80 GB.)To be careful - I want to do a "restore" to a different drive that ths one in use right now because at least everything but W backup and Sys restore is working fine.

I have a working ATIH2016 bootable media DVD which is working fine.

Once I get the two drives working inthe RAID - I can then break the RAID  like Intel  says .

All of this is to be sure I have a working system on a hard drive I can just plug back in if I let Microsoft install W10 and it screws something up.

Thanks - Hank

Hank, thanks for clarifying your question.

In reality, ATIH doesn't care about RAID as far as taking a backup image goes - if RAID is working correctly, then ATIH only sees a 'single drive' so if you restore your backup image back to a different single drive it should work fine, but as Bobbo has already advised, don't try booting with both drives installed.

What I want  to do is to restore the computer to the condition it was in before I tried to break the Raid without the second drive.

Hank, you won't be able to restore the image to both drives and then just raid them together afterwards.  You need to add the second "blank" drive back to the raid set first.  Then restore your image and should be well.  NO matter what you do, you will need to create the RAID first in the bios (I'm assuming this is a hardware raid?).  Just be careful (you have a backup so that's good).  On some systems, when you create a new RAID, it forces a wipe of the drives to create the RAID sett.  If that happens though, you would just restore the backup to the new RAID set and should be back to workign like nothing happened when your retrun to the restored image.

However, if you want to take extra precaution (which I'd recommednd), just in case... get another 1TB drive.  Pull the one working one for safekeeping.  Install both blank 1TB drives and create the RAID set again.  Then restore the image and test for bootability and functionality after that.   You'll always have that one working drive "just in case" if you take this extra precautionary step. 1TB drives are fairly cheap - roughly $50.  I realize this is an additional cost though, but to reduce risk, it may be worth the extra money.  Or try to find/borrow a 1tb drive from a buddy while you test and return the drive when you know all is well. 

Thanks Steve and Bobbo

I have a hard time making it clear - I do not want to restore the RAID - I never want a RAID again- wish I had never started it in first place.

This RAID is an INtel Matrix - ICH10R  chipset - so I assume that says its hardware.

BUT it appears I MUST restore the RAID to get SYS RESTORE and Windows Backup working again -

THEN I can greak the RAID the correct way and go about my business.

ONE question I keep asking .

When ATIH160 does a restore from a validated .tib file - what does it actually do to the system/data files on that drive ????

One reason I ask is I am told that INtel RAID   puts an ID on drives that are part of a RAID  which says to me I should NOT celan either of the  drives that were in the RAID.

Hank, if your intention here is to be able to upgrade to Windows 10, then I would say that Bobbo's advice above is the way to go.

Remove the existing drive that is working albeit with some issues for System Restore & Windows Backup.

Install a spare / new / replacement drive, check that your system does not see this as part of a RAID set, then restore your backup image and check that this works at least as well as the removed drive.

If all looks OK at this point, then go ahead with the upgrade to Windows 10, which in turn will also fix the issues with System Restore, Windows Backup and any other problem.  Once your system has been activated on Windows 10 you can then do a clean install if needed in the future as Windows 10 is linked to your hardware signature.

If you have other problems with Windows 10, then you can revert back to your removed original drive and continue from there.

Hi Steve -

OK here is where I am now..

The "working " drive is in SATA 0 / DISK 0 it  has a partition of 100 mb NTFS called "System Reserved" drive G:-Healthy (System  , Active , Primary Partition. The C: drive is 931.41GB NTFS Healthy ( Boot , Page File , Crash Dump , Primary Partition)

I cleaned the other 1 GB . initialized it , it is in SATA 1 / DISK 1 - I have it  named as drive N: so I can see it in Windows and it is a "New Volume N:"Healthy (Primary Partition"

I fiddled a bit trying to put the .tib backup on that drive but apparently I have to put that drive into SATA 0 (actually just move the SATA 0 data line over to the new drive) to be able to restore to that drive ???????  Do I need to do anything with the partitioniong ???

Both drives are now shown as non raid on the screen that comes up with F12 .

Thanks for the comments on Windows 10 - I was not sure that it would fix Sys Restore and W update. It is my understanding also that I do NOT have to re-install all programs like you always had to do before with a new OS .  ?????

Thanks again -- Hank

Hank,

You should be able to restore your backup to the new 1TB drive (SATA 1) but you won't be able to boot this unless you change the connector so that it uses the SATA 0 / DISK 0 which is where the BCD configuration will point to.  You should not have both drives connected at the same time once the restore has been done so that you can be certain that the restored drive is booting correctly.

When you perform the restore, it will overwrite everything on the new 1TB drive and recreate the partitions stored in the backup image.

When you upgrade from Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10, Microsoft will migrate your user settings and installed programs to the new Windows version and leave you with a WINDOWS.OLD folder that holds your previous version of Windows to allow you to revert to it if needed within 30 days of the upgrade.  The majority of Windows system functions will come from the new OS install, so any problems with System Restore etc should be solved.  Check your System Restore settings once you get to Windows 10 because Microsoft in its wisdom turn this OFF by default!

Thanks fro response Steve-

Will just move SATA0 to the new drive and leave SATA 1 disconnected from everything and see how that goes.

Thanks fro help - Hank

Hi Steve - NO JOY - I DID make a restore to the new hard drive and it works - but unfortunately apparenty the .tib file I made was after something had already happened. to hose W update and Sys Restore.

Only issue I had was for some reason I had to remove SATA1 check box from Drives inte bios even though it was not plugged in .

Anyhow the restore on the new drive works just like the one I was using . IOt took almost 3 hours - I guess even though the dtata/system is only about 80 mb it still takes forever because of the rest of the blank 1 TB .

I am just going to do the W10 update tomorrow  on the "old" drive since I now know the restore .tib file is good and know how to do it .

Hank

Thanks for the update Hank, hope all goes well with the Windows 10 upgrade.

Hi Steve - I FINALLY got Windows  update working again in W7- have not checked System Restore and am not going to since  ACRONIS 2016  can make full system/data backups which work  I will make a new full backup .tib of that drive tomorrow.

Getting Windows update working again was an incredible stroke of luck (and  maybe perseverance.) The sequence of events was mighty strange and not 100 percent sure which one or combination finally made it work (plus some dumb luck)  . First did a "fix" that popped up in one of the windows and it finally said it had fixed all the problems - before it had always said it could not fix one of the issues ,  , then crazy stuff like turning off Windows update in the control panel - , turning off Norton AV and firewall  , shutting off computer, then rebooting and turning Windows update back on. I then got the screen saying it was looking for updates but seemed to be going forever and here is the dumb luck- I started reading emails and did not turn off that window left it running - when I looked about an  hour later it said it had found a zillion updates and what did I want to install  - as usual . picked a few , they worked so let it do the rest and they all worked !!!! .

I am still nervous about the RAID - the DELL BIOS page still has RAID checked - and the systems says both drives are "controlled by the RAID BIOS"

The Intel Storage Manager screen says neither drive is a RAID drive - but I cannot get to the other  Intel RAID configuration page with CTRL-I whixch is where thei option to name both drives as non raid .  I have not hooked up the second drive again to see what happens at boot - it boots normally with RAID checked and just one drive - and it SHOULD be saying one drive is degraded - but does not . .

I find so much conflicting advice on INtel RAId I am afraid to mess with something that works .

Hank, thanks again for the latest update and for your PM with extra info.

I would recommend staying with what works at this point, in terms of RAID.

Once you have done the Windows 10 upgrade, then you are in a position where you can experiment more, if you wish, by installing a spare drive, restoring a backup of what you have at that point, then test the effect of trying to break RAID, with the sure knowledge that you have the original OS drive safe and ready to put back along with resetting the RAID settings to how they are now.  Alternatively, you could break RAID and then do a clean Windows 10 install on the spare drive and make a clean start with the new OS.