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  • #2173135

    Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

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    by rlynch2 ·

    Hello,
    I had a dell server running 2008 server sp2 that we were using as a file share. It really doesn???t have a whole lot within those shares. The server was running with two drives in a raid 1 setup, and took a whole backup using the server 2008 backup utility every night. The server itself has died, but I happen to have a server very similar in hardware to swap it out with. It only has one drive, so non raid setup. I have the server 2008 backup on an external drive and booting to server 2008 setup using a thumb drive. When I boot the new server up with the thumb drive, I am able to get to ???Complete PC Restore??? however it looks like it always reads my thumb drive as the C drive, so when trying to restore from the back up on the external hard drive, it fails because the thumb drive is seen as the c drive and its 8GB. Is it best practice to boot from the server 2008 cd to do a complete restore. Can you restore a complete backup even if the raid config isn???t the same, obviously as long as the new hard drive as big as the previous. Thanks in advance for any help???

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    • #2880807

      Clarifications

      by rlynch2 ·

      In reply to Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

      Clarifications

    • #2880789

      If I understand this correctly

      by robo_dev ·

      In reply to Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

      You’re trying to prevent having to reinstall the OS on the new server?

      The short answer is no, that won’t work because the hardware-abstraction-layer (HAL) of the OS, which includes the specific disk controller drivers, cannot be changed. The kernel-mode drivers must match the hardware.

      If, for example, the replacement server had EXACTLY the same bios, motherboard, and disk controller, you could just pop the hard drive into the other box. But typically the HDD controller is slightly different, and the result is a nasty BSOD when Windows launches.

    • #2880783

      couple of articles that might help

      by cg it ·

      In reply to Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

      http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/515a1c0b-169e-441d-84be-bcdcaf266e74

      http://www.wbadmin.info/articles/howto-bare-metal-restores-windows-server-2008-backup.html

      I’ve never done it so I don’t know if the above will work. Last time I worked on a 1 server business that the server died, the answer is find and buy the parts to get the hardware working, restore the server and AD, while the company bought new hardware. Then migrate FMSO roles to new hardware.

    • #2880770

      The only product I’ve seen work for this…

      by l_creech ·

      In reply to Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

      Is Acronis Server Backup with the Universal Restore add on pack, but you’d have to have been using before the server died to be useful.

      You can get further information at http://www.acronis.com. May be a good idea for the future at this point, and possibly an easy sell to accounting or whoever has to approve the expenditure.

    • #2880756

      Got it, thanks for the help

      by rlynch2 ·

      In reply to Server 2008 Complete PC Restore

      I am using two servers with pretty much the same hardware. However when restoring the full windows backup image while booting from thumb drive, it wouldnt do the restore, something about not liking that thumbdrive in the mix. I read in other forums of people having same issue. As soon as I booted from server 2008 cd instead of the bootable thumb drive, I was able to restore the windows image that was made from server 2008 backup. Needed to install a couple drivers since the hardware isnt exactly the same, but os loaded just fine. Seems like as long as the hardware is too disimilar, its possible. Thanks again.

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