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Problem restoring Windows Image to new SSHD - Bootmgr missing
Strap in folks, and thanks in advance for bearing with me, here lies a tale:
Came back from Christmas vacation to find one of my WD 500GB HDD was showing "fail." Intel Rapid Storage allowed me to reset the drive, and I made Windows Image files of the system (at the time, two 500GB drives set up in RAID0 array), and copied all the files wholesale onto a WD My Cloud NAS.
Error One: Having the image saved to the My Cloud, big trouble.
Error Two: Thinking Windows Backup and Restore was the answer - I know better now...
I bought a Seagate 1TB SSHD to replace the bad 500GB drive, on advise of a friend.
Error Three: I know now you can't run a RAID array with different size disks. Oh well.
Changed the drive set up in BIOS to AHCI, and now have two drives, the new 1TB installed, and one of the old WD 500GB. The WD 500GB is formatted NTFS and largely empty, but stable (passes ChkDsk etc.).
The New Seagate drive is fine. Also passes ChkDsk, etc.
PROBLEM: I could not get Windows Restore (from the original Win7 install disk from Dell) to "see" my Windows Image file. No matter how I connected the NAS, it would not "see" the image file (tried direct Ethernet, installed requisite drivers, etc.).
Attempt to solve 1: Transfer the image files (VHD file - someone asked if they were .img files and no, they were stored as .vhd) to a WD Passport 1TB external USB 3.0 drive. Again, Windows Restore run from the "repair" part of the Win7 install disk cannot "see" the file. Even when I install the 3.0 drivers, or move the drive to a 2.0 USB slot, no dice. And yes, the image files are on the root of the USB drive, read that somewhere too.
Attempt to solve 2: Acronis True Image 2016. I read where Acronis could read a Windows Image and reinstall it. After much trial and error and some sharply worded "chats" with Acronis tech support, I find out they do NOT support .vhd, at least not NOW. BUT, the 2016 app was able to reinstall the image, it just came up as a RAW format every time, and not NTFS. I followed Acronis's instructions to the letter, and it kept coming up RAW, but all the data was visible on the drive (if I looked at it through another disk-management software, like EaseUS, I could "see" that the files were there, I just could not mount the disk!).
Attempt to solve 3: Acronis sends me a trial version of True Image 2014 (which apparently CAN convert Windows image files to their native format). I convert the .vhd Windows Image to a .tib Acronis image. I save the new image to the USB drive and attach to the old computer. I try the same processes they outline "Grover's tutorial" - everything seems to go swimmingly, except I have the same problem - when it's all done and says "Successfully restored," I cannot boot. I get the "Bootmgr missing" message, and when I run DiskPart, the drive shows as RAW again.
So...what am I missing? Acronis does not seem too responsive with their tech support, at least to this issue, saying it's not their software, it must be something wrong with my system. I validated the image file once it was converted to .tib format. At one point I had installed the contents of the image and I could "see" all my files there, but the disk would not boot.
I did what I thought I was supposed to do, and now nothing works, and I've been working on this for a month now. I am truly at wits end.
I need to recover these files. Yes I have "back-ups" of all the stuff...documents, photos, music, whatever, but it's the operating system and the environment I want back. Three years' worth of updates, upgrades, patches, downloaded files that need to be installed and cannot just be copied over due to registry issues.
Yes, I could reinstall Windows 7 and start from scratch, but that will take another month and I won't be back to where I was on January 1st, and that's where I thought I would be by making the Windows Image.
I'll buy whatever software I need, reconfigure whatever it takes, already bought the new hard drive and the new external USB, so what's a few more bucks, if I can get my computer back?
Any help would be appreciated, tremendously.