Nvidia S-ATA RAID1 - TI Malfunction

First thing is I wonder why there are no forums in german language, it took me some time to find this one...

I also noticed that telephone support sucked - nobody is answering the phone, although I am calling on a pay line ! Sorry guys - great product but bad support.

Second thing - my problem with Acronis True Image 8 :

I have read the forums and noticed that there are problems with S-ATA RAID. In my case it seems to be even worse.

I have got a Gigabyte K8NS Mainboard with Nvidia NForce3 250GB Chipset. I'm using NVIDIA onboard RAID with two Seagate 200GB S-ATA Drives in a RAID1 Configuration.

When I installed Acronis True Image 8 everything was fine until reboot. Then the NVIDIA Controller BIOS showed me that the RAID was degraded. Looks pretty much like TI destroyed the RAID array. No Data was lost, but the drives were now running separately instead of the RAID Configuration. Restoring the RAID was not possible, so I had to delete the partitions and create a new RAID Array.

I'm really looking forward to Acronis solving those RAID Issues, as a RAID1 System is a very common thing in Server Systems I'm selling to my customers and I would really like to recommend TI to them because it is a great backup software.

 

Hello Dooble,

Thank you for choosing Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Could you please tell whether you called our German Support Team or not? I will try to sort out this situation.

Please describe what happened before you rebooted your computer. Please note that Acronis True Image is unable to change BIOS settings.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Yes, I called the german support hotline. I am from germany, so this is of course the first option for me to look at. I think it would be a good thing if there was a forum like this also on the german website.

Before rebooting the computer, I installed Acronis True Image 8, Standard Installation. It finished installing, but it seems that it produced a system error causing automatic reboot. I experienced kind of the same problem with Symantec's Norton Ghost 9.0.

I have been able to restore the system, but there is no way to make images of the harddisks. Nvidia RAID and Disk Imaging Software won't work together, as far as I see. If there could be made any update to Acronis True Image 8 to solve the problem, that would really make my day...

 

Hello Dooble,

Could you please describe what happens when you try to create an image of your RAID array under Windows. In fact, Acronis True Image doesn't have any Windows drivers and uses Windows rivers instead.

Also please clarify how you restored the system. If I got you right you didn't manage to create an image of your disks.

As for German support, have you written an e-mail letter to them? If so what was your Acronis request # which should have been sent to you in autoreply?

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Actually I didn't try to make any Image in Windows. That is because the installation of Acronis True Image destroyed the RAID Array itself. I then had 6 Partitions instead of 3 (Both drives are shown as single drive). I was happy that at least no data was lost. The system runs as a company server and important Data on it should not be lost in any case. Maybe it would be possible to create an Image of a single drive. But this is not what I want - those disks are supposed to run in RAID1, nothing else.

By "restoring the system" I didn't mean I used an Image of the disk, because I wasn't able to create any at all. I uninstalled TI8, backuped User Data and reinstalled Windows on a new created RAID1.

I know TI8 is quite different from Norton Ghost 9. But I'm experiencing problems with that software, too. Windows 2000 SP4 keeps on crashing with a BSOD.
(I cannot tell which error it shows, because Win is rebooting automatically).

The system is now running without any imaging software and I really don't want to experiment with things until I am at least a 99% sure that it will do no harm and fulfil its purpose...

 

I am pretty sure that the problem could be reproduced. I think it would be good if Acronis could do any testing with Nvidia RAID Controllers. I will try out myself it I get the opportunity, I think I should be able to build up a similar configuration soon.

 

Hello Dooble,

Can you confirm that after you installed Acronis True Image, rebooted the computer (that was asked by Acronis True Image installer) and booted into Windows you saw 6 partitions instead of 3, however you managed to boot Windows despite this error?

We do understand your situation and agree that the company server is not a computer where the new software can be tested. Could you please tell how you created RAID array on your server: did you set it in your BIOS?

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

First of all respect for your quick answers... didn't expect Acronis Support also working at weekends...

Exactly.

I created the RAID Array with the NVIDIA Tool, which is part of the controller BIOS. As the S-ATA Disks on the RAID Array are the only ones in the computer, I don't see any other way to create a RAID. Setting it up in a windows environment would require an OS installed, I suppose

You might also want to know that I installed TI8 from the german retail CD-ROM. I guess it's not the latest build on it, so there may be some bugs included, that are already corrected in the latest build. It might be helpful for you to know which version number it is, but I will have to look that up when I'm back at the company.

 

Hello Dooble,

This is really strange because as I mentioned before Acronis True Image cannot change BIOS settings. Could you please create Acronis Report and send to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread? I am sure the reason for this strange behaviour can be found.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

As I already mentioned above, it won't be possible to create Acronis Report on this machine, because it is running as a company server and installing TI may corrupt the RAID functionality.

I will test it again with a similar configuration, as soon as I have the opportunity. Maybe some Acronis technician has the possibility to test a config like that and see if it is working properly. As for compatibility to RAID1 there is still work to do I think.

My config was : Gigabyte K8NS (NVidia NForce3 250GB), NVIDIA S-ATA RAID, 2x 200 GB S-ATA Harddrive configured as RAID1 (Mirror). Operating System Windows 2000 Professional SP4.

Could you give me a list of Mainboards and/or Controllers that are tested and running without any issues with TI8 on a S-ATA RAID1 Config ? This could be very helpful for choosing another server config.

 

I have reinstalled the server now. I noticed that the system crashed sometimes when copying data. Seems that there is a problem with the Nvidia Drivers or Controller Bios or both of that. I used a P-ATA Config now and conncted a single drive to the Nvidia S-ATA RAID for Data Backup. Everythings working fine now, including TI8.

 

Hello Dooble,

Glad to hear Acronis True Image works fine for you now. If you encounter any further issues please feel free to contact our Support Team via e-mail support@acronis.com. We will certainly help you.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman