Windows 7 image restore

[bobjuch]

I had a drive in my RAID array fail so I replaced the failing drive. Unfortunately when I started-up, one of the other disks was not found. It turned out that its power cord had become disconnected. As as result the entire array had been marked FAILED. After reconnecting the power nothing I did could correct that. My only choice was to rebuild the entire array. I have an image backup from last night (taken with the Windows 7 utility) so I was confident that I could do a restore with no problems.

However when I go to to the image restore from the Windows 7 system repair tools on the install disk, I got a message saying it couldn't find a device to restore to.I figured that it might be due to not having the Intel drivers so I downloaded them and wrote them to a CD. After loading them though I have the same problem.

I have backed-up my essential data to the Net using Mozy and can do a file restore from my external backup drive but that's going to be a huge pain and I'd have to restore things that way.

So what do I need to do to use Windows Image Restore?!

[CLiNT]

Has the basic RAID array realy been properly set up/confirmed?
Where is your backup image located?

Attempt to troubleshoot your rebuilt array by reinstalling Windows 7 clean and minimal.
If this proceeds normally you could then boot and use the created W7 boot CD or Windows 7 DVD to restore your image.

[bobjuch]

Has the basic RAID array realy been properly set up/confirmed?
Where is your backup image located?

Attempt to troubleshoot your rebuilt array by reinstalling Windows 7 clean and minimal.
If this proceeds normally you could then boot and use the created W7 boot CD or Windows 7 DVD to restore your image.

Yes, the RAID is setup properly. I just tried istalled Windows 7 cleanly on it.

My backup image is on an ESATA drive.

I still get the same error.

[bobjuch]

On other forums (forii?) I found many reports of Microsoft's restore not working on RAID arrays. They also recommended Acronis True Image to do the restore; it can process the Microsoft backup.

Sure enough, it did it without a whimper! I am now buying it to replace Microsoft's POS. It has many more features and can even restore to a different motherboard and disk if the Plus Package is used (I could have used that three years ago).