Migration from Raid0 to normal drive

Hi all,
I'm showing an error in my Raid0 configuration, although windows is working properly, and from what i see, i can access all my data. But I think its time to move the install to a normal drive, and i used a ghosting tool to clone the 2 partitions to a new drive. All went fine.

I rebooted, and had to run windows repair from the original DVD, to fix the bootmgr.exe missing file. Again all went well and got all working on the new disk.

However now the clone requires 'activation' within 3 days, and when i try, it tells me i can't, because its and 'upgrade' (which it is), and that i need a new key (which i don't, at hefty price tag!!). Is there a way to fix this, without buying a new 'stand alone version' of windows 7.? (i have the original disk including the key, and its windows 7 ultimate upgrade 64bit).

I'm very frustrated, since it has taken me more than 10 hours to complete the cloning, after getting access to the disks, so any advice is most welcome.

You could try doing a Complete New install Over the TOP of your current install.

Look in the Tutorials for this forum.
Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

The OP stated he has the original package and key for is copy of Win 7. Not sure where you got he didn't? And not having a valid key is not the problem.

bigmck said:

Fish44 said:

Hi all,


However now the clone requires 'activation' within 3 days, and when i try, it tells me i can't, because its and 'upgrade' (which it is), and that i need a new key (which i don't, at hefty price tag!!). Is there a way to fix this, without buying a new 'stand alone version' of windows 7.? (i have the original disk including the key, and its windows 7 ultimate upgrade 64bit).

I'm very frustrated, since it has taken me more than 10 hours to complete the cloning, after getting access to the disks, so any advice is most welcome.

If you have a Product Key, simply put it in and you will be activated. If you don't have one, then you are running an illegal install of Windows. I am not sure where the problem is. Did you have Windows 7 installed before you did the Clean Install?

Sometimes even normal re-imaging triggers reactivation with the Product Key you own, especially when the hardware signature changes. You have an even more complex re-imaging having come from RAID0.

However if you own an Upgrade version of Win7 then what's required to activate it when reinstalling or imaging/cloning to a new or wiped HD is to do the quick registry workaround in Option 3 of Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version.

Let us know how this goes as there are other steps possible, and there may be consequences yet unseen from reimaging from RAID0.

Fish44 said:

Hi all,
I'm showing an error in my Raid0 configuration, although windows is working properly, and from what i see, i can access all my data. But I think its time to move the install to a normal drive, and i used a ghosting tool to clone the 2 partitions to a new drive. All went fine.

I rebooted, and had to run windows repair from the original DVD, to fix the bootmgr.exe missing file. Again all went well and got all working on the new disk.

However now the clone requires 'activation' within 3 days, and when i try, it tells me i can't, because its and 'upgrade' (which it is), and that i need a new key (which i don't, at hefty price tag!!). Is there a way to fix this, without buying a new 'stand alone version' of windows 7.? (i have the original disk including the key, and its windows 7 ultimate upgrade 64bit).

I'm very frustrated, since it has taken me more than 10 hours to complete the cloning, after getting access to the disks, so any advice is most welcome.

You should have no problem contacting MS and getting a code. See link;

How to contact a Microsoft Product Activation Center by telephone

HTH

SOLVED,

gregrocker said:

Sometimes even normal re-imaging triggers reactivation with the Product Key you own, especially when the hardware signature changes. You have an even more complex re-imaging having come from RAID0.

However if you own an Upgrade version of Win7 then what's required to activate it when reinstalling or imaging/cloning to a new or wiped HD is to do the quick registry workaround in Option 3 of Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version.

Let us know how this goes as there are other steps possible, and there may be consequences yet unseen from re-imaging from RAID0.

Many thanks gregrocker, you were right on the money!!

I tried several things, but this one worked. Problem is i guess raid0 uses a 100m boot sector partition, which i could not copy out (probably specific to raid0, since its not present on my new install). This is why i had to do the repair on the system partition clone.


Your suggestion worked for me, so in summary my process to migrate from the raid0 to a single drive is.

1. Bought a new drive, same size the raid combine drives. (was 2 500gb, so new disk is 1tb).

2. Set up the new drive with partitions exactly the size or greater than the old one. I checked the partition sizes with the properties option in windows, then converted from bytes to Megabytes’ (chrome will do the conversion for you). Used windows drive manager for this.

3. Installed DriveImage XML, and using the Drive to drive option, checked all partitions would fit on the new drive (choose the source, destination, and click next to get to the screen showing both source and destination.

If you get an error before this its because the destination drive is too small. For the source choose ‘Try Volume Shadowing Services first’, and untick raw mode. Choose ‘ignore’ when you get an error saying you cannot lock the destination drive. Follow the remaining instructions to copy the partitions, each in turn.
4. Ran checkdisk on the partitions (I did this because I knew I had errors on the original raid0 drive).

5. Made the appropriate partition the active partition on the new drive.

6. Shutdown, and disconnected the old raid0 drives. Put in the Windows DVD, and booted from it. On the windows install screen, choose the language and keyboard and click next. On the next page, I choose the option repair windows. Choose that option. I had to do this step a couple of times to get windows to boot.

7. When in windows, I let the drivers update, then checked the activation code. Because my install was an upgrade, I got an activation error. I followed the action recommended above for adjusting the registry, to get over this. Note the bat file did not work for me, and I ended up manually adjusting the registry key manually (always a risky business, but since I had my original raid0 still, not too much). If you know how to update the registry using a reg key (.reg file), you could use the green script below.
Changed from……

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE] "MediaBootInstall"=dword:00000001

To

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE] "MediaBootInstall"=dword:00000000

8. After that, rebooted the machine, and was allowed to follow the activation process.

Thanks for reporting back.

Just to comment on your steps above, we see problems semi-regularly with DriveImageXML for these operations. But what always works is Macrium Reflect freeware, Acronis True Image (with Universal Restore to do the SysPrep) or the free Acronis apps which come with any WD or Seagate HD's in the mix, Paragon Migrate to apply to SSD.