Problem with restoring from Windows System Image

marcbf

Member
I am in the process of moving my drives over to newer hardware. Prior to the move, I ran a full image backup on my existing machine. I am running Vista Ultimate full retail and have only ever activated it twice - original build, and a similar move to what I am attempting now - including RAID to RAID setup.

Original machine is Q9650 based 775 and I am moving to an i5-760 based system. OS was originally installed on two 80GB drives in RAID 0. I am keeping the same drives and RAID on the new system. BIOS is already set up and new RAID image has been created (drives are now wiped). Backup was made to a 1.5TB drive on a 200GB partition.

I have run into two issues:

1) If I boot from the install DVD and attempt an image recovery, the pre-installation environment can see the backup on the drive I originally backed up to. However, when I try to restore to the new RAID, it throws an error that there is not enough space on the drive.

Using DISKPART I can see that the drive shows up as a 149GB NTFS partition (same as it originally was). I also made sure it was assigned C:. Image is only ~60GB. So the recovery process is able to see the drive, but still says not enough room.

2) OK - so I figured I could try a clean install and then recover files at least from the system image. After the new install, I run the Backup & Restore utility and select the Advanced option and then the option to restore files from a backup created on another computer. When I point to the drive with the backup on it, Windows throws an error stating there is no backup to be found.

In #1 above, boot off the disk Windows can find the backup just fine (date, backup name, etc. all match what I did on the original machine). But It can't restore because there is not enough space.

In #2 booting into a clean install, Windows claims there is no backup on the drive when I point to the exact same drive from #1 above.


The issue in #1 may be that the original RAID was a 64k stripe and the new one is 128k stripe. Honestly I can't remember. If that is the case, and somehow that 149GB is even one bit smaller, I know Windows will claim the drive is too small.

#2 sucks though. Can't figure out what is going on there. I even took over permissions on the folders thinking that was the issue.

While this would be a great time to move to 7, I have a huge amount of A/V software I am running and I just don't have the time right now to make the switch.

There is one option I may try, and that is to restore to a single, larger drive (I have a spare 500GB laying around) work out all the driver issues with the new hardware, and then cloning that single drive back to the RAID. A little more work, but it may help.

Sorry for such a long post - especially since it is my first! I wanted to provide as much info as I could. I appreciate the time folks took to read and any thoughts/advice you have to offer.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Build
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield - stock
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
    Memory
    2X2GB G.Skill 10F3-10600CL9D-4GBPK
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 8800 Ultra KO Edition
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" Westinghouse LCd from Black Friday a few years ago
    Screen Resolution
    1680X1050
    Hard Drives
    2X80GB Seagate ST series in RAID 0
    1X1.5TB
    1X1TB
    PSU
    Antec Gamer Series HCG-900 900W
    Case
    COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN3 CM690 II
    Cooling
    Stock (for now)
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wireless Desktop
    Mouse
    Microsoft Wireless Desktop
    Internet Speed
    Comcast 15/5
Well it turns out a little more searching here would have helped. Cadex provided the answer to #1 with the same problem I encountered. Solution is over here: http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/292724-vista-image-restore-failure-too-few-disks.html :D

I went home at lunch, pulled the RAID and used the 500gb drive. As expected, there were a slew of issues related to the new hardware but I was able to boot it up and see that my OS was still intact.

I went with the 500GB drive with all SATA in IDE mode to keep newer RAID drivers out of the equation. My plan is now to clean up the mess with new drivers, get the system fully functional on the 500GB drive, then clone it with Ghost back to a RAID. Will probably need to do one more startup repair after that and let Vista update the MBR.

Will post back on how that goes when I get to ti.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Build
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield - stock
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
    Memory
    2X2GB G.Skill 10F3-10600CL9D-4GBPK
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 8800 Ultra KO Edition
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" Westinghouse LCd from Black Friday a few years ago
    Screen Resolution
    1680X1050
    Hard Drives
    2X80GB Seagate ST series in RAID 0
    1X1.5TB
    1X1TB
    PSU
    Antec Gamer Series HCG-900 900W
    Case
    COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN3 CM690 II
    Cooling
    Stock (for now)
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wireless Desktop
    Mouse
    Microsoft Wireless Desktop
    Internet Speed
    Comcast 15/5
TL;DR

Glad you got it all sorted it out.

Keep us updated as I'm sure that others will make use of it.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavilion G6
    Memory
    750GB HDD 6GB RAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD A6-3400M APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Internet Speed
    25mbps
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