Acronis True Image, Backup and Cloning and Its Operation

I have a Dell 1800 PowerEdge Server with an Adaptec Raid Array attached. The unit is a Domain Controller running W2k3 server with SQL and Exchange also installed.. I also have a parallel install attached to the mother board as well as a second drive available attached to the motherboard.

I need to clone the raid array attached to the adaptec board in Slot 1 to the second (single) drive attached to the motherboard and use that as my production drive while I recreate the array and update the bios on the board. After the array has been recreated and its bios updated I need to clone the second (single) drive back to the array.

The results to date of cloning with Acronis True Image installed on the parallel install (and booted to the parallel install so the OS, its programs and data are not live on the raid array) to the second drive is when the server boots up on the second drive after the cloning has been completed successfully, Windows does a reinstall and all my installed programs and Active Directory information are not there and the machine becomes a non DC workgroup server. I also tried to do a Windows Repair at the initial bootup, but this comes back with a corrupted data error. However the cloning is quick, we cloned 330 gb of information in about 2.5 hours.

I have read the website about the Migration software and Universal Restore and wonder if they could help me here. So my questions are as follows:

1) Should I be doing a clone or a backup and restore? If I did an entire image backup and restore, will it operate as fast as the clone does (when I do a file by file backup under backup exec or nt backup it takes 32 hours to do just the backup and verify, I do not have that kind of time. Acronis file by file seems quicker, but not as quick as imaging).

2) Should the restore be done with Universal Restore instead of the True Image restore to preserve all the original settings to account for the differences in hardware?

3) Is the migration software better for this function?

4) If I setup a separate raid array with the same controller board (with an updated bios) and larger drives attached and cloned to it, will this eliminate Windows reinstalling itself and preserve all my settings? Because of the differences in hardware is this my only option here?

OR) Is there nothing I can do other than just reinstall the OS to a new drive, move the data and restore exchange and sql and then do it again once I recreate the array?

Any advice someone can provide on this (besides answering the questions) would be helpful and GREATLY APPRECIATED!

 

Hello Robert,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Server Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Could you please clarify what you mean exactly when saying that you want to use your second (single) hard drive as your "production" drive? Do you want your server to run from this second (single) hard drive while you re-create RAID array and update motherboard BIOS or just use this drive to temporarily store an image\clone of your RAID array?

Please also let us know if you are going to change RAID array level or apply any other hardware changes to your system prior to restoring an image or cloning back to the RAID array.

What exact version and build number of Acronis True Image do you use? You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov