Can I image a RAID1 logical drive?

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07-27-2011, 10:18 AM
Sickboy

Can I image a RAID1 logical drive?

I've buggered up our SBS2003 Server's RAID array.
It's a Fujitsu Seimens Primergy
It has 2 x SAS Hard Drives originally in a RAID1 array.
One of the drives started showing a SMART error so I decided to replace it.

Unfortunately I removed the wrong drive and replaced it with the new one which started rebuilding as it should.

I guess I should have let the rebuild finish before taking it out again but the reported remaining time was over 50 hours!
Anyway I didn't wait and removed the new drive replacing it with the original working drive, then replaced the failing drive with the new one. I hoped the array would rebuild itself from the working drive but it didn't.

In Serverview RAID Manager I can right-click on the physical drive or logical drive and "Rebuild now" is an option. However clicking it doesn't do anything.

The server is currently running on one HDD.

Status of physical drive is "Idle" "Offline"
Status of logical drive is "Failed"

My question is this:- Can I take an image of the one working drive using, say, Acronis Disk Director, then create a new array and put that image back on the new logical drive?

I'm trying to avoid a reinstall.
07-27-2011, 02:38 PM
Midknyte

I think you should have wiped the new drive before rebuilding with the "good" drive.

Quote:

Can I take an image of the one working drive using, say, Acronis Disk Director, then create a new array and put that image back on the new logical drive?

If it's just a data drive, can't you just backup the data somewhere? Where are your backups normally stored? I don't see a need to image, unless it's a boot drive.

I thought Disk Director was a partitioning tool? I know you can move partitions around with it, but I don't think there is an imaging option.
07-27-2011, 02:51 PM
Sickboy

The drive is the system drive.

You're right about Disk Director, I meant True Image.
07-27-2011, 02:55 PM
Train

Disk Director
Seems Home has a new capabilities, but did not read closely.
Advance server can do it.
Advance workstation can clone.
07-27-2011, 03:56 PM
Midknyte

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sickboy

The drive is the system drive.

You're right about Disk Director, I meant True Image.

Ouch, system drive. Then yeah, TI would be an option.
07-28-2011, 06:43 AM
Sickboy

Thanks chaps. I'll give it a go.

If worse comes to worst we have backups made with SBS2003's integrated backup.

If I need to reinstall SBS2003 then recover from an NTBackup would that restore 3rd-party apps? We have a proprietary production/accounting suite which uses SQLServer and would need to be reinstalled by the vendor if that became necessary - we'd like to avoid that of course!
07-28-2011, 07:14 AM
Steve R Jones

Most apps write entries to the registry etc....
07-28-2011, 07:20 AM
Sickboy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

Most apps write entries to the registry etc....

That'd be no then

OK I'm going to try Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Server

Can't do it until next Monday.

Fingers crossed.
07-28-2011, 02:23 PM
Midknyte

Definitely go the Acronis way. I wouldn't bother with NTBackup. That would take way too much time and effort.
08-08-2011, 09:31 AM
Sickboy

Acronis Backup & Recovery worked like a charm. Restored in around 20 mins - brilliant. Would recommend it to anyone if it wasn't so bloody expensive.