Restoring an image to a RAID0 setup

I have skimmed through threads relating to RAID setups and would like to know if there is a tried and true method to restoring an image to a RAID0 system. I have two HDDs in RAID0 on an ASUS SK8V board.

I purchased True Image (v7.0) for just this purpose - as I do not feel confident reinstalling XP on a RAID system.

 

I do it all the time. When you boot to ACRONIS it will see your RAID drives. Just REMEMBER to make sure you have a good Image first.

 

Hello phillip.delarue,

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

Acronis True Image 7.0 should work properly woth your RAID array. If you encounter any problems using Acronis True Image please send a letter with the description of it to support@acronis.com.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

I've seen it mentioned but am unclear on this raid 0 restore issue. I've heard mention of reinstalling the raid drivers (IAAR in my case) when restoring. When, if at all, is this necessary? I've gotten (with acronis's support) all the features to work and verify except restore which is the most important. Just trying to ask questions prior to needing the answer.

 

Hello feddup,

It is not needed to install additional drivers or anything of the sort. The driver is included into Acronis Bootable CD and will see the RAID array correctly. After you restore the system you will obtain the exact copy of your previous operational system with all drivers installed.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Thank You for the response. After reading what seems like thousands of posts the "facts" start to get jumbled.

 

I use True Image 8. Have successfully restored a Raid 0 setup (with WinXP Pro) quite a few times with no problems.

If you use Norton Ghost latest version, you do need to have your raid drivers handy on a floppy or you will not see any secondary hard drive and its partitions (I keep my images on a secondary hard drive)

With Ghost, you also you may have to disable USB support in your BIOS as some systems hang when booting from the bootable Ghost CD if it is enabled

With True Image 8 - none of that - it just boots, correctly identifies my raid 0 setup and restores the image.

 

I'm not certain if this thread is completely related to what I want to do, so I'll ask a specific question that would help me.

I currently have one 120gb drive (setup as the bootable windows XP drive), and have two 160gb drives (setup in raid 0). I can access the raid drives in XP so I know I have the drivers installed.

Can I use this product to create an image of my single 120gb drive, and then restore that image to my logical raid drive, so that this raid drive will now be my bootable XP drive. The purpose for this is not to clone and make a new computer, but to prevent me from having to reinstall XP and all software.

I would appreciate any comments towards this point.

Thank you.

 

Hello MikeB,

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

The main trick in your case is not in the system transfer but in the subsequent system booting process. The system and all the data will be transfered to the RAID array normally. However the drivers for RAID controller should be avialable when Windows is starting up and we cannot guarantee that they will even though these drivers are installed for non-system RAID to be available.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Hello MikeB
In your case what you should beware is the drivers and boot sequence in the boot.ini file :
Drivers : before creating your image disinstall the raid drivers from within XP and before rebooting create your image and save it to your normal drive accessed before boot time with Acronis secure zone
Boot.ini : as the raid0 hd number allocated by Windows is different from the original boot hd what I recommend - and do and succeed - is to open the boot.ini file and copy the line of multiboot several times and to change just the rdisk number so as to be sure you can point to the correct HD
looks like this :
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows XP Professionnel" /fastdetect
JPG