Acronis and Raid...
Twice now I've had issues with Acronis and raid.
I have had computers that the power supply or motherboard died. I've used the bootable CD to creat an image.
I took an image of both drives in a mirror 1 (one at a time).
When I replace the part, set the two drives back up in a raid 1 (mirror), use the bootable cd to restore, Windows won't boot.
Tech support says Acronis is hardware raid 1 compatible, but I seem to have issues getting it to work in the real world. It's got the drivers as it sees the drives on backup and restore just fine.
Any suggestions?
Hello Allen and Pat,
Thank you for posting and thank you for helping Pat.
Allen, let me provide you with additional assistance please.
In case Pat's suggestion is not working for you, you can always get in touch with our Support team with this report collected from the bootable media so that we can resolve the issue.
In case you have additional questions, please let me know.
Thank you.
What is the message when Windows doesn't boot?
No message, just starts loading windows and then reboots with no error.
Verify your bios settings are still appropriate (the RAID is the bootable disk)
Yes, I even took the drives out of an array, and re-created the array.
Did you properly set up the partition where the boot files and folders are to be active?
I think so.... ??
Try to use your Windows installation DVD, choose install, choose repair, repair startup.
Yes, and it's unable to repair.
I have tried to restore both of the images I took - one at a time of course. (both should be the same as it's a mirror). I have tried to restore volume, I have tried to restore disk... same result each time.
Just for fun, I took a test box (different PC) put windows on it, took it offline and took an image of one of the disks in the raid 1 mirror. Performed a restore using restore DVD... same issue. Am I doing something wrong or is acronis buggy with raid arrays. They are both Windows 7 64 bit machines, and both HARDWARE raids.
Allen:
Each disk in a RAID-1 array contains information that identifies the disks as belonging to an array. As far as I know you cannot image the disks separately; they must be copied as an array and restored as an array. This should work - I've done it many times on a Windows 7 x64 installation, although the OS is irrelevant when you're imaging and restoring from the boot CD.
Take your test box and create an image while the box is set up for RAID 1. Then restore the image to the existing array, or to a pair of blank disks that you have set up as an array, and see if that works.
Hi,
It was still in the array when I imaged it in the production machine (Using the live cd). On the test box I did use a USB to SATA to do one at a time. I guess I can understand why that had issues then, but not why the production machine didn't work since I did that one with the live CD.
Allen:
I'm confused. Your first post stated that you took an image of both drives in a mirror (one at a time).
You should be able to do the following with TrueImage (providing that the OS being imaged or restored contains the correct RAID driver):
1. Image a RAID-1 array and restore the image to a RAID-1 array
2. Image a RAID-1 array and restore the image to a single (non-array) disk
3. Image a single disk and restore the image to a RAID-1 array
In the both boxes, it was showing as two different drives rather than one (combined array) so I had to choose only one drive to image. In the case of the 2nd box, rather than just choosing one of the two, i did both.
At this point, the drives are reformatted so my only option would be to restore with the image created already. I may have to reinstall windows and just restore directories and hope it's all there.
Allen:
Aha! I see the issue. TI should always see an array as a single disk. If it doesn't, that means that the boot CD does not contain the proper RAID driver, and I can't imagine a successful outcome.
I haven't tried this but what happens if you restore your single-disk image to a single drive (in non-RAID mode)? It likely may not boot, but perhaps the Windows 7 DVD can repair it. Just be sure to run the automatic repair multiple times since it seems to only be able to fix one problem at a time.
If you can get a single disk working, will your RAID controller then allow you to add a second disk and switch to mirror mode without wiping out the first disk? If so you can let the RAID controller create the mirror copy on the second disk.
For future work, are you using the latest version of TrueImage and is your boot CD based on the latest version? Newer versions contain more complete driver sets. Other alternatives are to make a boot CD based on WindowsPE. The driver set in WinPE, especially the version created from Windows 7 AIK, is extensive, and the boot environment offers the chance to install drivers at boot time. In the long run this would be your best option if you work on a variety of hardware. In the short run, if you check your account on the Acronis web site you can download an ISO of the boot CD for the latest version of TI that you've registered. If it's newer that the version you're using then it may be able to see your various RAID sets properly. Or you could contact Acronis Support and ask if they can make you a boot ISO that contains your specific RAID driver.
As far as imaging and adding to a raid, the only thing I could think of doing would be to image, restore to a 3rd drive and put the original two drives in a raid and do a clone to the array. Raids, almost always will delete any data on the disks when a new array is created or an existing one is deleted.
Back to the original question... If a motherboard dies, I have no way of cloning the drives while they are still in the array. What am I supposed to do in that case? (backups before it dies are good but if there isn't a current backup) Is there no way to clone just one of the drives?
Allen:
Your point about RAIDs deleting data on the disk when creating or changing an array is a good one. Coincidentally, I just did this a week ago. I tried to break a RAID-1 array into two separate disks and to re-use the main disk as the single primary boot disk. I was unable to use the disk after removing it from the array, but to be honest, I didn't try very hard. To recover I just let the controller delete the data on the disk and then used TrueImage to restore an image of the array (made just before breaking the array) back to the single disk.
That doesn't answer your question about how to recover after a motherboard failure. Perhaps someone else here has successfully done it? Anyone?
Allen,
You definitely need to contact customer support and see if they can provide with a solution for your CD to see your RAID as RAID.
Perhaps I'm not being clear. If the motherboard dies, I'm not sure if this is possible.