System Image Recovery

What a great thread.

I have set my 2 Velociraptor discs as one RAID 1 drive in W7 software raid-ing. The system quite properly sees each of them as a C drive.

I have done a System Image backup of them/it, and to my surprise it went down quite straighforwardly.

I have considered taking an old machine, building it with two old identical drives that I have as a W7 machine (activation might be a problem... but I think I get 30 days or something??). Anyway, I was thinking of doing an experiment like that, as I have no information to suggest that W7 would restore properly.

So, do you know if anyone has successfully done this ? - it is a small world, so I am sure someone must at least have tried !!

I await the crystal ball results...

SF

I put my question very badly.

I was referring to creating a RAID 1-based system on another computer to test the principle, not the actuality.

That is to say that I am backing up my 'real' system, but have been too wary of trying to restore it, as I cannot afford the time involved if the restore doesn't work, but does screw up the system. I have put the question on other forums, and nobody has responded that they have backed up and restored a system image where all discs are mirrored. That is the real question I am putting.

My favourite utility Acronis, cannot do this in its current version ATIH2010 . I had to buy it and go through a number of hoops before finding that Raid 1 and 5 are not supported. That is why I am so doubtful for what is, after all, a free utility in W7.

As I say, I rather confused it originally. I hope you can see where I am coming from now.

OK, Thanks for the info.

As it is my System Drive I am wanting to restore, getting individual files will only be of help if I am an expert and using an emergency repair disc... I want to have the same turnkey performance I am used to with my Acronis 11 on non-Raided XP computers.

So, I am going to build a new W7 installation on my old XP platform (after taking an Acronis 11 backup, of course) and make it RAID 1 to see what backup and restore does. You can be sure I will come back and let you know.

Anyone following this thread that HAS done this, please cough up, or send me a PM !! For more general information on RAID on W7, please note that only PRO and upward will allow RAID-ing of drives.

Did you try running startup repair on DiskM ( after removing DiskS ) ?

SeptimusFry said:

OK. I have done some experiments and am a bit unhappy.

I am going to use the names DISK-S and DISK-M for the two disks which make up the mirror set, the C: or system drive. DISK-S is the original system disk, and I added DISK-M to create the mirror set.

• I can backup the C drive fine (actually is is a backup of DISK-S).
• I cannot restore the C drive as a mirror set directly, I had to remove DISK-M from the mirror and then restore. Then recreate the mirror set. No sweat, but...
• I removed the DISK-S physical disk and found that I cannot boot off DISK-M, I found that in the W7 small print, it says so, so there it is. The mirror is therefore not boot security for failure of the original boot disk. It is only a data source.

I have now removed DISK-M from the mirror set, and left DISK-S on its own, and I can do backup and restores, using the native W7 or Acronis.

My own conclusion: Creating a mirror set for the boot drive is pointless. It yeilds little or no security.

As mirror gives no resistance to messing up your system disk in the first place [mistake, virus, instal something mucky] it can only be useful as a real-time hardware backup. But if you cannot actually boot from both drives, you are stuffed.

I have Googled around, following many threads, and found no reference to anyone actually being able to make the mirror bootable.

I am quite happy to leave my two big 1.5TB disks as a mirror set, as I only want hardware protection, if one fails, no major problems - it is just data, I don't have to boot off them.

This draws a line under this topic for me, hope my findings are of help to some other poor soul.

SF

PS. I built a new W7 system on my old P4 computer to try all this, and then duplicated on my new i7.


i7 x980 3.3Ghz, 12GB, Velociraptor 300, Nvidia GeForce GTX 285, NEC Reference 2690, WD Studio Ed II 2TB

Shawn,

I think you are right. Assuming all goes well with my P4 experiments, the two VelociRaptors in RAID 0 should be pretty nippy !

SF.