clone raid-0 array to single drive

[stevty2889]

Not sure if this is even possible, since I can't seem to get it to work. I am planning to sell my raptors that I have in Raid-0. I would like to be able to clone to a single drive, so I don't have to re-install everything.

I have partition magic 7, and tried using it to clone the raid-0 array to the single drive, but it is unable to boot afterwards, and parition magic says there is a partition table error. I also tried the trial version of True Image 8, and seagates drive utilites, and the same thing happened. All the data seems to be there, and the hard drive is readable in windows, but it won't boot, it says error loading operating system, windows intstall sees it as an unknown partition, so I can't do a repair install. Is what I am trying to do even possible? I'd love to hear some suggestions.

 

[BoberFett]

Ghost?

 

[stevty2889]

Don't have ghost, but don't know why it would work any better than the other programs that do the same thing, or does ghost clone the drive in a differant way??

 

[BoberFett]

AFAIK, I don't think Ghost does a sector per sector copy, which is what those other programs do. They're lower level programs whereas Ghost or Drive Image are more like a back up.

 

[stevty2889]

Well I think I got it to work. I ran testdisk from within windows, and it corrected the partition table. Currently doing a repair install where as before, windows couldn't recognize the partition..I'll report back after the repair install if it works out.

 

[stevty2889]

Hmm, still having problems. The partition is recognized now. I try to do a repair install, it copies the files over, says it's ready to reboot to continue install, then says "Error loading operating system"

 

[stevty2889]

Everything seems to be reading the disk properly now, but repair install still isn't working. Partition magic no longer sees any errors on the drive, before it wouldn't do anything with the drive at all. I got rid of the Error loading operating system message by switching to LBA mode in the bios(found the suggestion doing a google search). Now I get a disk read error message instead. If I change back to AUTO from LBA mode, I get the error loading operating system again. So close yet so far away..

 

[DarkTXKnight]

actually since you just repaired this drive it may not be set as the active partition anymore. turn that back on and see what happens

 

[stevty2889]

The parition is set as active. It still refuses to boot, and gives me the disk read error. It also appears that the backup bootsector is corrupted. I don't know what else to try at this point.

 

[Mutilator]

I'm assuming the RAID drives are using a different controller than the single drive right? If so you may need to boot to the stripe, change the IDE controller in device manager to use a standard controller instead of the motherboard/PCI card specific model and THEN Ghost (or some other program) the drives over to the single drive. That way Windows will know where to boot from the next time it tries to boot from the single drive instead of trying to boot from the RAID controller.
You shouldn't have to do a repair install or anything, just simply Ghost the data over.
I keep saying Ghost specifically because it's the program I'm most familiar with. Seems to get the job done.

 

[stevty2889]

Well I managed to get to get it to work. I used True Image 8 to make an image to my external hard drive, and then restored the image to the single IDE drive. Had to go in to recovery console to remove the SATA raid drivers as I was getting a blue screen off death, and then she booted right up!