2 Seagate St500DM002 hdd and Raid 0

[hpharley90]

About 3 weeks ago just as I was booting my desk top computer up (signature below)
we had an electrical power drop here at home and the house lights and everything else dimmed then came back on.
Well my computer was the only casualty. When it did start I had lost my anti-virus and also a disc-error on one 160GB HDD for my Raid 0 system.(Local Disk C)
Windows XP is still boot able though and things are pretty much OK..
I ran the disc check and it could not fix.

error checking.jpg

So I just bought two 500GB HDD from TigerDirect through the muvipix link today to replace the bad one and its partner.
I know how to install and have all my software discs for operating system and drivers and SP3.

I have Acronis True Image WD Edition. I have a clone of my Local Disk C about a month before this happened on an external usb connected hard drive.
I also have a backup of my Local Disk C on an internal drive.

Knowing that I have discs and Acronis clone and backup what is the best way for me to get the PC to work when I get the new drives installed?

[Bob]

I have a clone of my Local Disk C about a month before this happened on an external usb connected hard drive.
I also have a backup of my Local Disk C on an internal drive...what is the best way for me to get the PC to work when I get the new drives installed?

Use the most recent one. If that's the clone, clone it back to the new drive. If it's the backup (it needs to be a full drive backup not just a partition backup) restore it to the new drive.

Just a comment about the difference between a clone and a backup. Cloning is not generally a backup strategy. Clones are typically used to copy one disk to a different disk drive for the purpose of migrating to a larger hard drive or to a new machine. Full drive backups copy the same information as a clone, but, instead of taking over the entire target disk, are written to a compressed .tib file. You can place more than one backup on the same drive, automatic backups can be scheduled, and you can use incremental backups. So, backups are generally much more flexible.

To the system, two disks in raid 0 appear to be a single disk. The raid controller does the work of writing to the volumes in the raid configuration. You would define the raid array and then restore or clone to it.

You can't use disk check to repair the drive because it does not have access to the individual disks in the raid array. Also, Raid 0 does not provide data redundancy.

[hpharley90]

Bob thanks foe chiming in. I was hoping you would.

Use the most recent one. If that's the clone, clone it back to the new drive. If it's the backup (it needs to be a full drive backup not just a partition backup) restore it to the new drive.

How do I do that.
Do I start in safe mode? Then open Acronis?
I have only reinstalled operating system.
Never anything with clone back to the new drive. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

The back up is the most recent.
But I would like to be able to know how to do both ways.

[Bob]

You can't restore the system drive while Windows is running. You need to boot from a standalone version of Acronis (also known as the Acronis Bootable Media or the rescue disk). Boot into Windows and start Acronis. My version has a link to "Create Bootable Rescue Media" on the main page. If your's doesn't, check the Tools and Utilities and see if it is there. Select that to create the rescue disk. I created mine on a CD.

Once you've created the rescue disk, shutdown Windows. Boot from the rescue CD. You may need to set the bios to boot from the CD/DVD drive. When the system boots, you will be executing Acronis in a Linux OS. You can then select Recovery to restore from a drive backup or Clone to clone from another drive.

when selecting the from and to locations, you need to be careful. Linux has its own rules of drive naming and the drive letters may be different from the ones you are used to in Windows. What it calls C might not be the same one Windows calls C. Just be careful to ensure that you know which disk is which before you write over one.

It's a good idea to make a rescue disk before you actually need it.

[hpharley90]

Create Bootable Rescue Media"

Thanks. I did not know about that.
It's done now.
I think it only took about 30 seconds to do.
My new drives will be here on Friday so that is when I'll take care of it.
Thanks for your help Bob and I let you know how I make out.

[hpharley90]

Bob I have Acronis open. I pick Clone Disk. I picked automatic then next. It asks me for source disk. I check the correct one. Then click next.
Then it asks me for target disk. I try to pick both raid disks but it will only allow me to pick one. What do I do?

[Bob]

The raid controller will make the two disks look like one disk to the system. If you are seeing two disks, you haven't set up your raid array. If the raid controller is built into the motherboard, you typically boot into the bios and there will be an option to set up the raid array. Choose that and specify the disks to be used. If it asks to select a stripe size or chunk size, select the default size. I hope you plugged the new drives into the same sata ports on the motherboard as the old ones. Often only certain ports can be configured for a raid array. There are other bios settings that may need to be made. Do you have any system documentation?

See this article: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/How-to-Setup-a-RAID-System/393/1.

[hpharley90]

The raid controller will make the two disks look like one disk to the system.

When I click my computer like I have above I see one disk.
In Acronis it just lists all drives. I have four settings in Bios for my Raid controller.
I'm using what it says is default.

.

I hope you plugged the new drives into the same sata ports on the motherboard as the old ones.

Yes I didn't unplug from mother board..Just at drive end.
When I have Acronis clone disk wizard open it lists all drives.I click source disk then I click next and for destination disk it show both drives not just one.

While waiting to see if I would hear from you I called Acronis and he told me my version 2010 is old and does not support Raid 0 and I need to buy 2013 version.

[hpharley90]

here are settings for my raid controller.
Raid autodetect/AHCI this is default
Raid autodetect/ATA
rAID ON
cOMBINATION

[Bob]

Before you trust Acronis Support on the Raid 0 answer, you need to make sure the two disks are actually configured and striped for Raid 0. I don't think they are since you didn't run the raid configuration utility.

If the system is the one in your signature, go here and read pages 29-31 and it will step you through the process. ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_xps_desktop/xps-400_owner's%20manual_en-us.pdf Use the Intel® RAID Option ROM utility method.

Once you've done that, try the Acronis rescue disk again.

[hpharley90]

i will do what you suggest right now.
Thanks Bob

[hpharley90]

Bob you surely are the best. I wish I could repay you for the help you have given me.
You were right on.
Everything is working as it should.
Thank you so much.
I have learned so much from you.
Richard

[Bob]

That's good news! Glad I could help!

[hpharley90]

Well things did not so so smooth after all. there was about 37 minutes to go and I started to get an error telling me something about not being able to copy text. My options were to retry, ignore,ignore all and cancel. I tried retry twice and after a brief pause it happened again.
Then I tried ignore and then that kept coming back.
So then I hit cancel. then went to bed.
I got up this morning and put in operating system disc to format drive. That worked good.
Now I started Acronis again and the same error came up again. So this time I clicked ignore all.
It went from 36 minutes left to 12 hours then 15 hours.
As I'm typing this I looked over and see that it went to 35 minutes left to finish part 3 of 4.
I don't really know what is going on but I guess I'll find out if and when it finishes.

[hpharley90]

Well Acronis finished and said clone was successful but something is wrong because I keep getting blue screen.
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer