Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

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Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

Postby Mr. Happy on Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:16 am

I've currently got a 1 TB RAID 1 running on Seagate drives. If you've used Seagate much you know they die alot...I've had to swap three times in the past six months.

I've got 4 brand new Western Digital RE4's that I'm looking to setup in a RAID 1+0. Rather than arduously, manually, backing up all my data and resinstalling windows and dozens of programs I'd like to use a windows backup image to transfer everything in one go using an external drive as intermediary.

What I'm wondering is if there are any problems or pitfalls I should expect? Has anyone actually done this, and does it go as smoothly as you would think it should? Does using a RAID cause any special issues (same mobo controller for before and after) or does the 'virtual' -ness of the drive insulate that aspect?

Would it be better (cleaner, healthier for my pc) to just do a fresh windows installation?
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Re: Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

Postby xoqolatl on Mon Jul 11, 2011 8:25 am

1. If you are moving from RAID to another RAID on the same controller, it should just work. No driver issues, no switching between AHCI and IDE.

2. I'm moving OS-es like that almost daily, although not with Windows Backup. I'm using Norton Ghost (command line utility) ran from a bootable dos pendrive. Important: if using Norton Ghost, you must image the whole disk, not single partitions, if you want your boot settings to stay the same.

3. If you must have a different partition arrangement on the target drive/volume, you can just move the Windows partition, use Windows install DVD or a pendrive to fix the boot record, then fix disk letters manually while in Windows.

That Ghost utility also lets you move disk to disk without making an image in between. LMK if you need it.
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Re: Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

Postby zombie@computer on Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:01 pm

Mr. Happy wrote:I've currently got a 1 TB RAID 1 running on Seagate drives. If you've used Seagate much you know they die alot...I've had to swap three times in the past six months.

I've got 4 brand new Western Digital RE4's that I'm looking to setup in a RAID 1+0. Rather than arduously, manually, backing up all my data and resinstalling windows and dozens of programs I'd like to use a windows backup image to transfer everything in one go using an external drive as intermediary.

What I'm wondering is if there are any problems or pitfalls I should expect? Has anyone actually done this, and does it go as smoothly as you would think it should? Does using a RAID cause any special issues (same mobo controller for before and after) or does the 'virtual' -ness of the drive insulate that aspect?

Would it be better (cleaner, healthier for my pc) to just do a fresh windows installation?

Used seagates all my life, never once did one die on me, nor are they known for dieing often...
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Re: Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

Postby MayheM on Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:52 pm

I have always used seagate as well and only ran into one problem with them but that was with a free agent external drive. I have been running raid 0 for a while now and have not come into any problems, but the pitfall is if you do have an issue you lose everything. Mainly I did RAID for the performance boost. I am in the process of building a new machine with SSD drives. The speed there will eliminate the need to RAID.

All that aside, there is no harm trying to use the windows backup. If it fails you still have the original files and can build from scratch. I always find it is best to build from scratch anyway. It cleans up any messy things that may have happened over time. Once you have a full clean install you can make a backup image and then you can restore from that whenever and not worry about any problems. So I would say it would be best to do a fresh install. It does not take too long to do and you may end up saving time in the long run...
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Re: Transfer a windows installation with a disk image?

Postby Mr. Happy on Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:38 pm

Thanks for your guys feedback and sorry I don't respond sooner, I had to replace more than just my hard drives so it took me a long time. I ended up putting windows on a separate drive from my libraries, steam, and some programs, so with this new configuration I didn't do a disk image, but I think I will make one for next time, the drive basically just has windows on it anyway.

About western digital vs. seagate, I've had bad experiences with seagate but your right, that doesn't mean they are bad. I am not a statistically significant sample!
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