Moving XP x64 to new RAID array on different SATA controller

[Stereodude]

So my main server had 2 Seagate 1TB 7200 RPM HD's in RAID-1 on a Gigabyte / Jmicron SATA-II / IDE controller. The 1TB array has several partitions. The OS is in a 25GB one. I want to move the OS to a new RAID-1 array comprised of 2 Intel 80GB G2 SSD's on the ICH10R controller, but keep the Seagate 1TB RAID-1 array in the system (it will be repartitioned later).

So, I added the SSD's, created the array, created an aligned partition, and then cloned the C partition over to the existing aligned partion on the SSD RAID-1 array. The data is all there. However, it won't boot. It hangs at Verifying DMI pool data. After looking into further, it seems that NTLDR, boot.ini and NTDETECT.COM are located on the D (2nd) partition of the Seagate 1TB RAID-1 array and as a result didn't end up on the new SSD RAID-1 array after clone and likely explains why it doesn't boot.

How do I fix this?

Do I need to use the XP x64 CD, boot to the recovery console and "fixmbr" the partition on the SSD RAID-1 array?

 

[Mercutio]

The fastest thing to do is probably to pull the JMicron array and do a repair install targeting the RAID1 of SSDs. I suspect that just fixmbr isn't going to cut it, though it's completely harmless to try.

 

[Stereodude]

The fastest thing to do is probably to pull the JMicron array and do a repair install targeting the RAID1 of SSDs. I suspect that just fixmbr isn't going to cut it, though it's completely harmless to try.

Will a repair install require me to reinstall anything, or not?

 

[Mercutio]

Will a repair install require me to reinstall anything, or not?

Maybe IE8 and some Windows Updates. Your apps will still be there.

 

[Stereodude]

It looks like I may be able to clone the OS partition, manually copy Ntldr, Ntdetect.com, boot.ini to the drive, edit boot.ini to make sure it points to the right partition, and then fixmbr it from the recovery console.

Per MS you can make a floppy "bootable" by copying those 3 files to it and making sure boot.ini points to where Windows XP is installed. Seems to reason the same should work for a HD (SSD).

What bugs me the most about all of this is unplugging the RAID-1 array from the Gigabyte / Jmicron controller and rebooting causes the array to be detected as degraded on the first boot after it's first plugged back in and rebuilding the array takes many hours.

 

[Stereodude]

I probably should just backup the extra partitions / data that I want to keep that are on the 1-TB array, pull it / them, get the system booting from the SSD's, then add the the 2 1-TB drives back to the system (as blank drives), create a new empty array, partition them, and then put the data back on them.

 

[Mercutio]

Per MS you can make a floppy "bootable" by copying those 3 files to it and making sure boot.ini points to where Windows XP is installed. Seems to reason the same should work for a HD (SSD).

This is true and I have done it many times in the long-distant past (NT4 needed that a lot), but I'm not exactly sure that doing so will address your issue, which is why I suggested the repair install in the first place. I know it will work and it's relatively expedient.

 

[Stereodude]

Well, I got curious and decided to try copying the 3 windows startup files and then fixmbr / bootcfg it. That didn't work...

So, now I'm going to take Merc's advice and do repair install. :idea:

 

[Stereodude]

No dice so far...

The repair process finished and the system rebooted and then nothing. :cursin:

 

[Stereodude]

So, I tried it again. I clearing the drives and re-created the array and then copied the data over again. This time I didn't copy over Ntldr, Ntdetect.com, or boot.ini. I also didn't do the fixmbr or bootcfg. This time Windows didn't even give me the repair option. I'm not sure which of the files / options needs to be on the drive in order for XP to give me the repair option.

 

[Mercutio]

How are you cloning the drive? Ghost? dd? TrueImage?

 

[Stereodude]

Ok, so I tried some additional things that didn't give me the repair option:

• Copying only the 3 "magic" files over to the drive
• Doing only a fixmbr (no 3 "magic" files on the drive)
• Doing a fixmbr + copying Ntldr + Ntdetect.com (no boot.ini)

 

[Stereodude]

How are you cloning the drive? Ghost? dd? TrueImage?

I've been using Drive Snapshot since it will allow you to restore an image to a partition without destroying the alignment of the partition (and pretty much all the other tools don't).

I'm trying one more thing before I give Acronis a shot (just as a sanity check).

So, I was able to pick the repair option (again) by:
Doing a fixmbr + copying Ntldr + Ntdetect.com (no boot.ini) + running bootcfg /rebuild

 

[Stereodude]

Well, my first attempt using Acronis went up in flames and did the same thing (ie: nothing / sitting at Verifying DMI Pool Data...)

 

[Stereodude]

So Acronis didn't create a primary partition. It made an Extended Partition with a logical volume inside of it which of course isn't bootable. :bstd:

I'm going to try like one more thing before I go with Plan C and try a clean install (just to see if it'll boot from the array).

 

[Mercutio]

I'm going to try like one more thing before I go with Plan C and try a clean install (just to see if it'll boot from the array).

Which version of TrueImage are you using?

 

[Stereodude]

I've got 11.0.0.8101. I was able to finally get the OS to boot from the SSD RAID-1 I restored the TI image as a boot volume, copied over the 3 startup files, and edited the boot.ini. Of course the partition wasn't aligned though.

 

[Stereodude]

Alright, I was finally able to do what I wanted. I use Acronis and then a gparted LiveCD to resize the partition so there was 1MB of empty space in front of it. The partition resizing aligned the partition on a a 2MB boundary (4096 512Byte sectors) which is larger than it needed to be, but it's not starting on the 63rd sector anymore. I had been targeting a 128kB boundary (since the 80GB G2 uses 128kB erase sectors) which I could get by running a 2nd pass with gparted following this guide, but it's not necessary.

 

[Stereodude]

So FWIW, Acronis will restore a drive image with the same alignment that it originally had. So, if you have an aligned drive, make an image of it, and then restore it to another drive you'll still have an aligned drive.

 

[LunarMist]

That is correct. Or if you have aligned a partition, made an image, and restored it to the same drive it will remain aligned. I believe that started with TI 2010. I remember the issue with my 750GB notebook drive in the spring.

 

[mubs]

Some of the free partition manglers don't align partitions. I used a free one recently and had helluva problem unborking the whole thing. Partition Magic always worked correctly, but the last version released (8.3 or something like that) barfs on 1 TB drives.

 

[Mercutio]

SD, there was a big jump in functionality between TrueImage 11 and the 2010 version. I know 2010 supports more RAID stuff. I don't know if it would help in your situation but I did want to mention the fact that the program has changed a bit since then.

 

[Stereodude]

I tried Acronis TI Home 2011. It's terrible! It doesn't even work correctly. You can't restore an image to a smaller disk without it automatically resizing all the partitions. If you do the restoration of individual partitions the amount of unallocated space after partitions doesn't update as you change the partition size.

 

[Mercutio]

I tried Acronis TI Home 2011. It's terrible!

It's different. I only have TI 2011 on a couple computers. I don't find myself cloning to smaller drives very often, either.

 

[Stereodude]

It's different. I only have TI 2011 on a couple computers. I don't find myself cloning to smaller drives very often, either.

Well, I'm cloning a 320GB spinning HD to a 120GB Intel SSD (or at least trying to). V11 would be able to do exactly what I'm trying to do, but not 2011. :cursin:

:idea: Time to uninstall 2011 and re-install V11.

 

[time]

Stereodude, is this any good to you? It's free.

 

[Bozo]

Here is a free backup and restore I have used. It's free.

Macrium Reflect

 

[time]

Oops! Sorry, the one I linked to is no longer free except where bundled with another product.

 

[Mercutio]

Here is a free backup and restore I have used. It's free.

Macrium Reflect

Macrium just uses .zip files for everything. It's a file backup, not imaging software.

 

[Stereodude]

I need to recant. True Image V11 is no more capable to do what I want than 2011 was. In neither can you restore a disk image and omit one of the partitions. You can restore each partition one at a time from an image which destroys their alignment (at least in V11).

I thought I was out of the woods because when I installed Windows 7 on this drive I installed into a 30GB partition and left a large empty partition at the end. I thought that by deleting the large empty partition and creating a new whole disk image and restoring it to the new SSD I would able to keep the remaining 3 partitions intact. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. If the new drive is larger than the drive cloned, Acronis insists on expanding the partitions to fill the new drive instead of leaving empty space at the end. :cursin:

 

[Bozo]

Macrium just uses .zip files for everything. It's a file backup, not imaging software.

I have used Macrium to make full system backups. I used their server version to move server 2003 to new hardware.

 

[Stereodude]

So, my current plan is to create an aligned empty partition after the partitions I want to keep on the 320GB spinning HD that will bring the utilization of the 320GB drive to the exact size of the 120GB Intel SSD. Then I will clone the entire 320GB drive and the restored image should fit exactly on the Intel SSD and maintain it's alignment.

If that doesn't work the fallback plan is to use gparted and resize the partitions to be the size I want (and properly aligned) on the Intel 120GB SSD after I get them on the drive in an incorrect manner via Acronis (or some other tool). :skepo:

This really shouldn't be this hard. :frowner:

Though, I should point out that Intel claims their SSD's don't need to be aligned and the benchmarks seem to confirm far less improvement by aligning than other SSD's.

 

[Stereodude]

I give up! Acronis is just a steaming pile of manure.

I got the old 320GB HD to have 120030494720 bytes used by partitions. This is equal to the largest possible usage of the 120GB Intel SSD with 1MiB aligned partitions. The Intel 120GB SSD has a 120031511040 byte capacity. A direct replication would leave 992.5kB unused on the Intel 120GB SSD. However, despite that Acronis still won't restore the image to the drive and leave the partition sizes and placement alone.

There are 4 partitions on the 320GB drive:

• Partition 0 - 4166MB
• Partition 1 - 100MB
• Partition 2 - 30729MB
• Partition 3 - 79474MB

It wants to enlarge #0 slightly, shrink #1 slightly, can't tell on #2 (it reports before and after size in GB and the # is the same), and grow #3 slightly. :bstd:

 

[LunarMist]

I'm not sure why you need four partitions, but TI worked fine with two partitions on my WD 750GB advancing format drive. I used Acronis to restore the C: partition from a smaller drive and resized C: as desired. I booted the restored OS, created and formatted a second partition in Windows, and then used the WD alignment tool to align the drive. There are small spaces in the partition view, I assume due to the alignment. After that I made an image of C: with Acronis 2010. When the image is restored the drive partitions remain aligned.

 

[Stereodude]

Windows 7 likes partitions. The 100MB you're stuck with if you let the installer partition the drive. I like to put the pagefile in it's own partition so it can't get fragmented (not really relevant with a SSD though). The 4th is just to have a partition you can put stuff in that's not the OS partition should you have to reinstall.

 

[LunarMist]

I know you can install Win 7 to the first partition of a drive previously prepared with 2 partitions and it will not change them or add the 100 MB.

 

[Stereodude]

The conclusion to my HD to SSD sage is here.