Restore Dell RAID Image

I have a Dell 1850 with a PERC 4E/SI controller and two 146 GB SCSI drives installed.

When the hard drives were configured they were done so with two virtual drives in a RAID1 configuration. So instead of one large mirrored 146 GB drive they split it up with a 30 GB Virtual drive for the OS and a 116 GB Virtual drive for Data.

What I need to do is backup the two virtual drives and then reformat the drives so that I have one virtual drive. Then restore the data onto this new setup.

I have read in order to make the drive bootable I should create the imaging selecting the entire disk option. Using this method also copies the 31 MB EISA FAT 16 partition, I’m assuming this has the RAID information on it. This is were I’m confused when I restore the information. Do I exclude this partition from the restore?

Is this doable with Acronis and if so what steps are needed.

I am just beginning with Acronis any help would be appreciated.

Thanks…

 

Hello rtibbets,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

If you want to just change the partition layout of your RAID array (without the need to re-configure the RAID array) then we recommend using Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 or Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0 (depending on which operating system you use) for your purposes. Both these products support all levels of RAID arrays and allow changing the partition configuration (create\delete\resize\merge partitions) without the data loss.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 and Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0 in their receptive User's Guides:

Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0 User's Guide is available at this page.

Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 User's Guide is available at this page.

Note that it is strongly recommended that you read the respective documentation prior to using the above mentioned products.

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version of the product you are interested in to be completely sure that the software works fine on your particular software\hardware configuration:

The free trial version of Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0 is available at this page and has the following limitation:

- Only partitions of the minimum size (1 cylinder ~ 7,8 MBytes) can be created (both in Windows and in rescue mode).

The free trial version of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 is available at this page and has the following limitations:

- Only partitions of the minimum size (1 cylinder ~ 7,8 MBytes) can be created (both in Windows and in rescue mode).

- Acronis OS Selector trial period expires after 15 days, and then starts with a 15 seconds delay.

Please visit the Enterprise section of Acronis online store to purchase the full version of Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0 or the Homecomputing section of Acronis online store to purchase the full version of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0.

If you plan to change the configuration of your RAID controller and therefore need to take your system "offline", we recommend that you use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home or Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows (depending on which operating system you use) for your purposes.

The scheme that you should follow in order to achieve your goal is as follows:

- Create an image of the entire disk (i.e. entire RAID array) saving it to any supported storage media (e.g. internal, external or networked hard drive, CD, DVD, etc.);

We recommend that you create the entire disk image, because if something goes wrong for whatever reason this will allow you to revert your system to it's initial state at any moment.

- Turn off the computer and re-configure the RAID array;

- Boot the computer from the Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD and restore the beforehand created image to the newly installed\configured RAID array\hard drive.

As for the EISA partition that persists on your hard drive (RAID array) at the moment, it is a so-called DELL service partition allowing one to revert the computer to the factory defaults. If you do not need it any more then please feel free to exclude this partition from the restoration process, i.e. restore only your system and data partitions along with the hard drive MBR.

Note that you will need to make the appropriate changes to your boot.ini file, as it contains information about the number of partition where Windows is located. You will need to change this number to the appropriate one (the system partition will be the first one after the restoration). Otherwise, the restored operating system will not boot.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home and Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows in their receptive User's Guides:

Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows User's Guide is available at this page.

Acronis True Image 9.0 Home User's Guide is available at this page.

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version of the product you are interested in to be completely sure that the software works fine on your particular software\hardware configuration:

The free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows is available at this page.

The free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home is available at this page.

Both these trial versions have the following limitations:

- Within Windows: all functions available; 15-days trial period; 5 Acronis True Image Agents (if the package is corporate).

- Using Bootable Rescue Media: Recovery and Validate features available only.

Please visit the Enterprise section of Acronis online store to purchase the full version of Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows or the Homecomputing section of Acronis online store to purchase the full version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov