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dugn
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2009
- Messages
- 398
I need an imaging solution that can help me restore my boot drive and data drives with more flexibility than WHS and Windows 7 System Image Restore.
In the last few weeks, my C: boot/swap drive (2x 128 SSD RAID0) crumbled one SSD at a time while my trusty D: data drive (2x 1TB Seagate HDD) continued to hum along without fail. But the crumbling SSDs left me with the need to
During all of this, I came to discover the shortcomings of both Windows 7 System Restore and WHS on Windows 7.
For Win7 Image Restore, I couldn't exclude my D: drive from the image restore, even though nothing about it needed to change. And once I let Win7 Restore restore it, multiple files were corrupt. Fortunately, I removed my original D: drives before the restore and just hot-swapped them back in. Problem solved - but no thanks to Image Restore.
As for WHS on Windows 7, although it allowed me to selectively restore volumes (exactly what I needed), it didn't allow me to restore a volume to a smaller target volume. Which is a serious problem when I'm restoring to either a larger drive with the later intent to restore to a smaller drive - which is exactly what I need to do in both bullets 2 and 3 above. I also didn't get a bootable C: drive once WHS restored Windows 7 - even after a system repair. Using DiskPart or Disk Manager to initialize a volume smaller than needed (as I did when I down-sized a spare 1TB drive to match the size of the 119GB of usable space for a restore), is a PITA and prone to an easy mistake that would thrwart a WHS restore that needs the volume to be the same size or larger.
At this point, I need the ability to restore only volumes I select, and to do it to larger or smaller target volumes - all while having confidence in data integrity.
Free or for pay, it doesn't matter. I just want a good product I can trust.
Recommendations?
PS: Forgive the duplicate post. I only got one recommendation and without a lot of details. I'm re-posting this here hoping to get better recommendations and reasons why...
In the last few weeks, my C: boot/swap drive (2x 128 SSD RAID0) crumbled one SSD at a time while my trusty D: data drive (2x 1TB Seagate HDD) continued to hum along without fail. But the crumbling SSDs left me with the need to
- Initially, restore the original C: boot drive image of a RAID0 (2x 128 SSD) array to a single drive (1x 128GB AHCI SSD) configuration
- A week, later, the remaining SSD failed, so I needed to restore the current C: boot drive (1x 128GB AHCI SSD) to a single HDD (1x 1TB Seagate)
- Then, if I can trust an SSD again once I get these back from RMA (Corsair X128's - both of them), I need to restore the current C: HDD to a single 1x 128 SSD - and later back to the original RAID (2x 128 SSD) configuration depending on when these two RMA'd drives are returned.
During all of this, I came to discover the shortcomings of both Windows 7 System Restore and WHS on Windows 7.
For Win7 Image Restore, I couldn't exclude my D: drive from the image restore, even though nothing about it needed to change. And once I let Win7 Restore restore it, multiple files were corrupt. Fortunately, I removed my original D: drives before the restore and just hot-swapped them back in. Problem solved - but no thanks to Image Restore.
As for WHS on Windows 7, although it allowed me to selectively restore volumes (exactly what I needed), it didn't allow me to restore a volume to a smaller target volume. Which is a serious problem when I'm restoring to either a larger drive with the later intent to restore to a smaller drive - which is exactly what I need to do in both bullets 2 and 3 above. I also didn't get a bootable C: drive once WHS restored Windows 7 - even after a system repair. Using DiskPart or Disk Manager to initialize a volume smaller than needed (as I did when I down-sized a spare 1TB drive to match the size of the 119GB of usable space for a restore), is a PITA and prone to an easy mistake that would thrwart a WHS restore that needs the volume to be the same size or larger.
At this point, I need the ability to restore only volumes I select, and to do it to larger or smaller target volumes - all while having confidence in data integrity.
Free or for pay, it doesn't matter. I just want a good product I can trust.
Recommendations?
PS: Forgive the duplicate post. I only got one recommendation and without a lot of details. I'm re-posting this here hoping to get better recommendations and reasons why...