Acronis and Raid Issue

Info:
I have a system that ran a Raid 1 config.
Abit AI7 with ICH5R southbridge chipset / raid controller.
Used Acronis True Image Home v10 I ran weekly backups to an external.
HDDs: 2x Samsung 120GB SATA drives
Windows XP Pro SP3

The problem:
Long story short, I had to do a restore from Acronis to get the system going, and once I got into windows I found out from the Intel Matrix Storage mgr that one drive was failed. Why the system was crashing when trying to load windows I have no idea (even in safe mode)... since 1 drive was supposedly fine.

What I've done / tried:
Anyway, I don't have any identical spare 120gb drives, so I popped in a WD 250GB Blue SATA.

When trying to boot with the WD 250GB and Samsung 120GB, I couldn't get into windows. I went into BIOS to alter the HDD boot priority and no hard drives are listed!! Only the PCI add-in device is listed. RAID is enabled in BIOS and I've never seen a BIOS not list the hard drives like this before... yes, I rebooted and raid was still enabled, but still the BIOS wouldn't recognize the drives...

When I unplug the WD 250gb, the system would boot with the working Samsung 120GB, but still if I went into BIOS the drive wouldn't be listed... the only way to get the drives to be listed in the BIOS is if I was to run IDE (non-raid). This makes no sense to me as all of my current machines will list my RAID configs as ONE DRIVE.

Anyway, I figured since I have acronis images, why not just re-create the Raid 1 config.

I went ahead and re-created a raid 1 with the Samsung 120gb and a WD 250gb. Yes I know it'll only run as 120gb and the slower drive, but that's fine.

The problem now:
Acronis won't recognize the raid since the raid drivers aren't loaded. I HATE THIS about Acronis. It doesn't have an option to load drivers from a floppy / removable device. I have to format the drives BEFORE running Acronis. Again, I HATE THIS!!

I popped in an Ultimate Boot CD, and no clue what the heck to do... it's way too disorganized for my liking. I heard about "Bart PE" but I couldn't find it on the disc I have... I burned the UBCD maybe a yr ago... should be v4.1

So I figured I'll just run an XP install CD, and do a quick NTFS install and then just manually turn off the machine... I've done this before... it's GHETTO but it works.

I'm running the XP format now... is there a simpler way to do this?

I want to know a way to get Acronis to recognize a RAID array that's not formatted. What's the BEST way around this... if it's Bart PE, or to slipstream drivers to Acronis... whatever it is... just an easier way then doing the XP install and manually rebooting while it's copying the setup files.

Another thought was running the Vista Recovery CD which I didn't have in hand.

*Edit*
I got the machine up and running by doing the XP disc method I listed above... not the best way, which is the main reason of this thread.

I usually just do the XP format reimage method.

Im sure there is a better way but Ill be damned if I know.

Adragontattoo said:

I usually just do the XP format reimage method.

Im sure there is a better way but Ill be damned if I know.

Click to expand...

It's annoying, isn't it... if XP can format, then Acronis should have that option too. I mean, how else can you RECOVER a machine with a dead hard drive...

Yes It is annoying I wont disagree there.

my head hurts this morning, glad I got laid off because there is NO WAY I would make it into work.

Time to finish the rack until I order the Norco 4u's and then clean.

After I go back to bed for a bit.

g0d I will try to play with a few raid setups on my Perc5 once I get the bracket, Ill see if there is any way to build in a driver.

im wondering if the acronis boot rescue disk would have helped

DavidJa said:

im wondering if the acronis boot rescue disk would have helped

Click to expand...

That's what I use... the bootable CD that I created. If I was to do this from windows, it wouldn't be a problem as I could format from disk manager... but since I'm doing it with brand new hard drives and the bootable media, Acronis can't see the raid without raid drivers... and I haven't figured out a way to implement raid drivers.

Thats good to know in the future that if I have a raid issue and need to reimage the drive.

Would the Acronis safe disk zone of helped? Im not sure exactly what it is but maybe if that was on a single partition (non-raided drive) it might help?

deathman20 said:

Thats good to know in the future that if I have a raid issue and need to reimage the drive.

Would the Acronis safe disk zone of helped? Im not sure exactly what it is but maybe if that was on a single partition (non-raided drive) it might help?

Click to expand...

Not sure... which one is the safe disk... is that another Acronis software? I have True Image v11 and v10

g0dM@n said:

Not sure... which one is the safe disk... is that another Acronis software? I have True Image v11 and v10

Click to expand...

I got True Image 2009. The secure zone is what I was thinking and guess it wouldn't really help per say. Was thinking of it more like a raid 1 type solution but guess its something totally different after looking into it.