Help Recovery plan

I just start working in the IT dept of a small – medium size organization where everything has done in and old fashion way.
Now I would like to implement a Recovery plan for the Windows 2003 server.
I backed up the system state and tried to restored on a testing server (diferent configuration)didn’t work.

Having machines with diferent hardware configuration. What would be a good option to implement a recovery plan in case of disaster.

Thank you