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RAID1, Acronis, and NTLDR corrupt

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by dedlbug

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Wondering if anyone had any input here. I am running a Windows 2003 SBS server with Acronis True Image Echo Server. (New from 9.1) I can backup fine and restore fine. I was interested in adding a RAID setup now. I created an image with Acronis. Restored that image to a new SATA hard drive. Turned off the server, disconnected the old hard drive, installed the RAID card (SIIG Sata 4 channel), connected the new hard drive with the restored image, and attemted to boot. (Did not build array yet) I get a "NTLDR is corrupt" error.

I start to think this has to do with the Boot.ini, but I don't know what to do here. I am going to try to use the windows cd to try and fix the boot, but I have to install a floppy drive first so I can load the RAID drivers. Does this sound right to anyone? I am trying to build a RAID1 array using new hard drives instead of the existing ones.

Thanks so much for any feedback and help. =]

*UPDATE*
Here is a little more info I am getting now. If I run Bootcfg from the recovery console, it says: "Failed to Sucessfully scan disks for Windows Installations. Error may be caused by a corrupt file system." Then if I run Chkdsk, it says the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems."

I know running chkdsk is not the answer here, but I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. Here is an article I found that is similar to my situation, but I would just like to see if anyone has any ideas before I just decide to reinstall the server: https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-11185-0.html?forumID=85&threadID=199066&messageID=2073700

Thanks =]

5 replies

by p.j.hutchison

It is not a good idea using images to restore a server to different hardware esp. different disks and a different controller as Windows do not like it at all.

I suggest you restore it back to the original disk, and use the RAID for data instead of a boot disk. Otherwise I suggest a proper install of SBS onto the RAID 1 set. and restore data (from a backup, not an image).

by dedlbug

I really appreciate it. It would be cool to get the RAID going without a re-install, but if I can't avoid it, then so be it. Do you know what it is that causes Windows to not like this operation? I have done this type of procedure on several XP machines, but never Server OS.

Thanks again. =]

by p.j.hutchison

Its a driver issue, Windows records somewhere which controller driver to load and boot from. Sometimes it can get this wrong and fails to switch over and still tries to boot from disk on the old controller.
The official 'fix' is to do a repair install of windows, but it does not always work...

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