You'll notice a similar shortage of size in the other system as well. Although not nearly as much.

Adding 2 600GB drives you would expect around 1171.88GB rather than 1117.82GB (54.06GB short).

Since the shortage of the larger array is not twice as much as the smaller array, I doubt it's necessary or intended by the RAID controller.

Thats going to bring up the question of if the image gets restored into the existing destination partition or not.

Dave

Nikos,

What is the size of the .v2i image of the C: drive for each computer?

Yes,you're right,it's 100 mb,not gb.And also about RAID,yes both systems are on RAID 0 (stripping).My mistakes,sorry for that.About the 100 mb partition in the second system,It's the "system reserved" partition made by windows upon installation.

I don't need that and i would like to restore the image to the single (600 gb) partition that will be created when i will delete both partitions before formating. As for the v2i image files,they are 117 gb on the main system and 107 gb on the second system.

I don't think there will be a problem about restoring the image on the target drive.My question is,will i have to remove Linux completely from the main system,and rewrite the windows bootloader entries in the MBR and then take the image that i will restore to the second system,or it won't be needed and i can leave Linux as it is?

The hardware in both systems is similar.Both have the Asus Rampage 3 Extreme motherboard,12 gb corsair dominator 1866 ghz memory and also both are watercooled.Their only differences are: the main system has 2x600gb velociraptors in RAID 0,as the C: drive,3 more -single- 1TB caviar black hard disks,3 gtx480 graphics cards in sli and the DVD writer of course.

While the second system has 2x300 gb velociraptors in RAID 0, 2 more -single,again- caviar black disks,3 gtx580 graphics cards in sli and the DVD writer of course.So their differences are the capacity of the C: drive (2x600 at the main,2x300 at the second) the different graphics cards type (gtx480 at the main, gtx580 at the second) and that the second system has 2 single extra 1 tb hard disks,instead of 3 of the first.What i don't understand is,when i take an image of the C: drive at the first system with Ghost,the C: drive is the partition that has windows,if i restore that image to the second computer,the image will also include the Linux GRUB bootloader entries at the MBR and the mount points to the C: partition? Or not,it will be just the windows installation and settings? Because if it messes with GRUB bootloader entries it won't boot into windows upor restarting,when it will finish the image restore.I have done the proceedure about a year ago,and it worked,but when it booted into windows,the C: partition was renamed to F: and it showed me the known empty black screen,with the "windows not genuine" message.I had fixed it then,by renaming the partition to C: by following this advice i found here: http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/75746-copy-windows-not-genuine-after-cloning-d...   but of course,i don't want to do it again,it's a "last resort" solution.

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nikoscbr wrote:,

if i restore that image to the second computer,the image will also include the Linux GRUB bootloader entries at the MBR and the mount points to the C: partition? Or not,it will be just the windows installation and settings?

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OK. I still don't understand your RAID on the target HD not being 600 GB. But this is what I'd do.

Delete the SRP and Win7 partitions from the target HD.

Restore the Win7 image taken from the source computer to unallocated space on Disk 0 in the target computer.

DON'T SELECT "Copy MBR" during the restore process. This will prevent Grub from being transferred to Disk 0 in the target computer. Disk 0 in the target computer already has its own MBR which will suffice.

The OS partition on the source HD is double the size of the target partition and despite the small amount of data, the sectors in use within the source partition may extend past the 300 GB mark and result in a failed restore. Resizing the source partition smaller and creating another image would be necessary if Ghost fails.

Not that it makes any difference to my suggestions but I just noticed another strange feature of Disk 0 on the target computer. The 100 MB partition is not a System Reserved Partition. It is not System and it is not Active. It has a drive letter too. These changes are not created by a Win7 installation.

How did that happen?.

I have no idea ! But i will try the proceedure now and i will let you know if everything went well.

Ok i tried the proceedure today,but it didn't work.I booted with ghost from the target computer and tried to restore an image i had taken from the source computer,but it failed.I mean  the restore run fine,but on rebooting it pasted the initial bios screen and stopped there with a dash blinking at the bios screen.It just stopped at the bios screen with a dash blinking without booting into windows.So,tommorow i will try something else,i will remove the two 1TB hard disks that i have at the target computer,install them normally at the source computer and try copying the C: drive in the main system to the two disks that i will remove from the second system.I will just copy the C drive to the two 1TB disks (from the two 600gb velociraptors to the two 1TB caviar black disks).And then i will again remove the two caviars,put them in the second computer and try booting again,from the cloned disks.This has to work for two reasons,because i removed linux completely so there is no grub anymore and second,because i will copy the 1,2 tb main C: disk of the source system to the bigger 1,8 tb caviars (both in RAID 0) so it should work this way.Since i copy to a larger drive,it should work i think.I restored the windows bootloader so there won't be any grub entries to mess it up.

But it was a little frustrating today,because i though that the image restore would work but no,it failed.So i will have to try more drastic measures.I could of course do a clean install of windows in the second system,but it would take me several days to bring the system like the first one -and i am too tired to spend 2-3 days downloading and setting things up.So,i will try the cloning proceedure and i hope it will work. 

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nikoscbr wrote:

 stopped there with a dash blinking at the bios screen.It just stopped at the bios screen with a dash blinking without booting into windows.

 

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How did you prepare the target HD. Did you delete the two partitions or did you wipe the HD?

It's possible you don't have boot code (blinking cursor). Could you try writing a MBR to the target HD.

Create a Windows 7 startup repair disk on your working system.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5409/create-a-system-repair-disc-in-windows-7/

Boot the target system with it and follow the instructions on that page to get to the option to open a command prompt.

At the command prompt type:

bootrec /FixMbr

bootrec /FixBoot

exit

Remove the disc and try to boot windows.

Dave

Thanks Dave.

In one of my tests I got a blinking cursor. It happened when I restored an image to a wiped HD and deliberately didn't restore the MBR.

I just deleted the boot code from a Win7 HD. It causes a blinking cursor.

In both cases creating boot code enabled Win7 to boot.