Vista OEM and new RAID 1: SB600 Chipset

I'm trying to clone an image of Vista OEM, on a cheap PC I received as a gift, and place the image on a new PC I'm building with a RAID 1. That way I can use the cheap PC for Linux.

But I've hit a problem. Can anyone help?

I thought I would first check that the Acronis Recovery Boot CD could recognize the raw RAID 1 before I made any images. Unfortunately, Acronis sees both 500GB drives but NOT as a RAID.

If I run "dmraid -r" from the Acronis Linux prompt I get:
/dev/sda: pdc, “pdc_bceh”, mirror, ok, 976562432 sectors, data@ 0

That seems to imply that Linux (and therefore Acronis) thinks the RAID 1 mirror is up and working, and that they have the correct drivers.

Am I missing something?


Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2 motherboard
Onboard ATI/AMD SB600 RAID chipset
2 x WD 500GB SATA HDs
Latest Acronis True Image 11
Vista OEM

 

Oh, and I tried the "quiet acpi=off noapic" caper too, but with no luck.

 

Acronis does not see RAID 1

Acronis True Image Home 11 boot CD does not see my RAID 1 mirror, only two separate drives. Searched through for answer but couldn't find one.

Downloaded latest Acronis build
Used magic "acpi=off noapic"
Checked sysinfo etc.

Acronis Linux shows RAID mirror set and, presumably, ok:
drmraid -r
/dev/sda: pdc, “pdc_bceh”, mirror, ok, 976562432 sectors, data@ 0

Yet Acronis (full) boots up and shows two separate drives:
Drive Capacity Model Interface
Disk 1 465.8 Gb ATA WDC WD5000AAJS-0 SCSI
Disk 1 465.7 Gb ATA WDC WD5000AAJS-0 SCSI

465.8GB Dynamic Volume
465.8GB Unallocated

I'm guessing that Acronis doesn't like the HD marked as "Dynamic Volume" but I've run Western Digital's Diagnostic tool to write zeros to the whole drive. Don't know what else to do. Does anyone have an idea on this?
Thanks

 

Re: Acronis does not see RAID 1

Welcome to the saga of the dreaded version 11 ;-)

You need to
1) contact TechSuport, gievn them allyour system information. They'll ask you to send them some more info and then start sending you one by one diff iso file to burn to CD until you end up with one that works (or at least works more or less)

Or

2) skip all that and just make a BartPE or VistaPE disk which is more likely to get you going sooner.

sh

 

Re: Acronis does not see RAID 1

Hey, thanks for the reply....I was beginning to think about shooting myself:

Vista machine playing up and then my venerable 5 year old XP system failed after plodding along fine with a Highpoint RAID 5. Strangely enough it occurred just after I installed Acronis TrueImage on it (I was beginning to clutch at straws). The other odd thing is that I know I've used Ghost on the XP machine with no problems (even from a boot cd). Unfortunately I lost my Ghost CDs and thought I'd give Acronis a try. Four days of pain later and I'm not having fun.

I think I've fooled myself into thinking I had a Dynamic disk problem when I was really misreading the Acronis "clone disk" window/screen (it was getting late).

So now it does look like I just have a problem with Acronis identifying the RAID. I even tried a Fedora Rescue Disk and it disn't see the RAID either. On the face of it, it does look like a missing Linux driver.

The only thing is, when I started this process I did (at least once) get into the Acronis Linux, type "dmraid -r" and get what looks like a confirned RAID (as seen by Linux).
/dev/sda: pdc, “pdc_bceh”, mirror, ok, 976562432 sectors, data@ 0

Where "pdc" indicates the Promise RAID controller used in the ATI/AMD SB600 chipset.

The unfortunate thing was that the Acronis application never saw the RAID.

 

Re: Acronis does not see RAID 1

It probably won't take you nearly as much time as you've already spent on this to make a BartPE or VistaPE disk. I think the VistaPE is easier because it comes with all the drivers that most folks need--but Mustang's instructions tell you how to add drivers if you need to. I recommend trying it.

 

Hello Bo Stone,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Could you please collect some more information to let us investigate the problem thoroughly?

Please create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post on the computer with RAID.

Please also create Acronis Report on the computer with RAID in the way described below:

- Download and run Acronis Report Utility;
- Select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Hi Marat

I did send a note to Acronis support a couple of days ago but got no reply….that’s why I’m on this site.

Regarding the "Acronis Report Utility" is there a version that can be put on a USB flash device or similar?

I've have created 3 floppy disks (all working disks and freshly formatted) and tried booting each. In each case I get "Invalid Partition". In the BIOS, the only boot option set was "Floppy" so I know it's not referring to the HD.

I tried the same floppy drives and floppy disks on another PC. All I got was:
"Starting Acronis Loader....Error loading EXE"

This floppy drive has been working fine...maybe it's just failed.

I did also try to use Roxio Classic to create a bootable DVD from the floppy but this failed because Roxio does not recognize the floppy as bootable.

Thanks

 

You realize that with completely different hardware on the new system there's a good chance that this Vista installation won't even boot.

Since you have an image of the cheap system, why not transfer the hard drive to the new system and see if it boots. If you can get it running, you can add the RAID drivers, video drivers, NIC drivers, mobo drivers, sound drivers and any others needed.

You can improve your chances by changing the video adapter to plain VGA in Windows, and uninstall all hardware that won't be on the new system such as the video, sound, modem, NIC, etc with the hard drive in the cheap system. Shut down, transfer the hard drive, pray, and see if you can get it to boot in the new system.

If it won't boot the new system, put the drive back in the cheap system, restore the image and buy a copy of Windows for your new system.

 

Hi Marat

Regarding the "Acronis Report Utility".
So far I have tried:
(1) 3 different floppy drives (all working)
(2) On 3 different PCs (2 AMD-based and 1 Intel-based)
(3) 3 different floppy disks (all working)
(4) Tried to create a bootable DVD from the floppy disk image, but Roxio doesn't see the floppy as a bootable image.

In each cases 1-3 above, when I boot each of the PCs I get the following:

Starting Acronis Loader....Error loading EXE
Then eventually: Invalid Partition Table

I've already sent the Sysinfo and a host of other information to Acronis support a few days ago and received no reply. Do they really need this "Report Utility" information also, or are you just yanking my chain?

Sorry to pester you but I'm getting zippo from Acronis support.

If you tell me what information to tool gets I'll get the information from a Linux boot disk.

 

Thanks John

I know it seems like a strange thing to want to do. I understand (now) that it might been easier just to get a new Vista Premium DVD but the Vista PC was a gift - I really don't have a great need to use Vista, it just seemed like a a "nice to have" and better than just over-writing it with a Linux install.

I guess I was just assuming that it would be easier than it's turned out to be. I've used Ghost in the past and I don't remember things being this difficult.

Some other guys have suggested using True Image Echo Workstation with Universal Restore. I might give that a go if Acronis can give me a refund on this True Image Home junk.

 

The Universal Restore is designed for the situation you are in - restoring to different hardware.

 

Hello Bo Stone,

We are sorry for delayed response.

Could you please let us know your Acronis request number (e.g. [Acronis #123456]) which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? We will find out how the investigation of your issue is going. If you have not received an autoreply then please send us a Private Message containing your e-mail address.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

It was under a different title:
[Acronis #1403430] Acronis can't see RAID 1

but it includes details of the SB600 controller, sysinfo.txt etc.


And a reply to another question:
Just to show how bad Acronis True Image 11 is, I tried the following:
My existing system has an onboard ATi/AMD RAID controller (SB600 chipset) that True Image Rescue CD just can't recognize....but...

if I boot the machine using an ancient copy of Norton Partition 8, which uses an even older, croaky Caldera DR-DOS boot, it sees the RAID no problems whatsoever.

 

Hello Bo Stone,

We are sorry for delayed response.

Could you please clarify if you received an e-mail that was sent to you? Did it solve the problem? If not, please reply to that e-mail with information requested in it. Please also mention that Acronis Report couldn't run from floppy drive.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

I have just emailed a bunch of information back to Acronis support.

The customized ISO image they sent also failed to recognize the RAID.
They sent a link to the Acronis Report Tool. It looks like the exact same link you sent over but for some reason this version worked. Maybe a checksum with the download would be useful. All report information sent to Acronis support.


Here's one extra, unusual aside:
I took two unformatted HDs and placed in an AMD CPU system with onboard NVIDIA SATA RAID configured to RAID 1. Acronis rescue CD and Fedora Rescue Boot CD both recognized RAID.

The next day I forgot about configuring these, still unformatted, RAID 1 hard drives and placed them in the PC with AMD CPU and ATI/AMD SB600 onboard SATA RAID. Strangely enough the AMD FastBuild RAID BIOS recognized the RAID as a RAID1. (This may not be that surprising as I believe both SATA chipsets use the Intel open standard AHCI API.)

At that point both the Fedora Boot CD and Acronis could see the RAID 1......clearly labeled as an "NVIDIA RAID 1 mirror".

So, I guess, if anyone is having problems with a Linux boot CD and the ATI/AMD SB600 SATA RAID controller they can borrow a friend's PC with NVIDIA chipset, create the RAID, and then move it back to their SB600 system. Thanks NVIDIA.

 

For those that are using the ATI/AMD 690/SB600 chipset (with RAID 1 configured), here's the latest:

1) Acronis created a number boot CDs that failed to recognize the RAID
2) I found an AMD Linux driver on the AMD website and passed on the details
3) Acronis support asked *me* to download the driver and send it to them because they were waiting for 'AMD approval'. I told them to get it themselves.
4) Acronis built another boot CD with the AMD AHCI linux driver

The Acronis boot CD now recognizes the RAID 1. Hurrah!
Unfortunately, it no longer recognizes any attached USB hard drives - so I can't backup to anything. It also seems unable to connect to any network devices........

Meanwhile ShadowProtect continues work like a dream