I’m pretty sure this goes for any Windows Server version from Windows Server 2008 and upwards really.
If you’re not up for reading the entire article , the short answer is. Don’t . Please read this previous article I wrote on using Windows Server backup and network shares instead.
Here’s the scenario I had last night.
The plan was to simply shift some servers from older ones to newer ones.
In this case from some older HP Proliant Servers to some newer DELL Servers.
Using backup / restore is a nice method if yo’ve done it earlier (you’ll always run into unexpected stuff if you haven’t done it). Basically the idea is that you donät have to reiinstall all software and settings but simply do a complete Disaster Recovery of the server and fix any hardware issue afterwards. It’s much quicker than installing a new Windows Server from scratch, applying all patches, installing all the software on it, restoring the data for them it and remembering server shares, any special configurations and so on.
The scenario was on the servers to be shifted, there were locally attached USB drives that took a backup every hour of the server. The backups were really quick (since they’re block based, delta and used the VSS ) and everything seemed fine.
The plan was to boot up on a Windows Server Server 2008 R2 Server install DVD / USB drive and simply choose “Repair my computer”, attach the USB drive and simply choose the lates backup image and restore.
A good plan. A great plan even. The result.. well.. not so much.
After booting up on the DVD we hade some read-issues of the DVD first of all. We tried it on several servers and it simply stalled on the “Setup is starting…” . We created new DVDs , same issue. Just one of those weird things that happen sometimes.
Well, not a an issue really. Let’s go for USB stick/drives instead. We created a bootable Windows Server 2008 R2 USB drive and things were looking upward.
Booted on the USB-stick/drive, chose “Repair my computer” and attached the USB disk where the backups are.
Nothing really happened. It just seemmed to be searching the drive for backups and eventually timed out with an error message abu the “Backup wizard being open for too long” and blablabal. No backups to choose, thus , nothing to restore.
On the USB drives, there were a few hundred generations backups, automatically done by the built in Windows Server Backup.
So, for trouble shooting, we attached the drive to a running server and there’s nothing wrong with the disk. We could browse the filesystem and see the WindowsServerImagebackup and everything. Things just got stranger.
As a troubleshooting thing, we decided to see what happens if we try to choose to do a restore from a server that we weren’t go to shift but that was using the same backup method, that is, a locally attached USB disk, dedicated for backups and the backups were automatically run every hour to it.
Interestingly enough, everything seemed fin (all backups had ran succesfully and so on, absolutely nothing pointed to any errors) but when choosing the “Recover once” option we had exactly the same symptoms. It just stalled searching for backups and eventually timed out.
Now we realized that this is not a good way to do backups, although everyting seems ok according and to the backuplogs.
So, the workaround then . Here’s what we did.
1. We created a new, complete backup to a network share (excluding any USB drives of course)
2. We booted up the server with a USB stick, “Chose repair my computer”, and Advanced to attach to the network s image to share where the backups are.
3. Restored the server 🙂 . Oh, the joy.
4. Disconnected it from the network, rebooted, Set up the same IP address as the original had (since there’s new networks cards this has to be done manually), shut down the old server, attached the new and estored server to the network and we were good to go. Everyhing was ok. All servicesa could be started, the Intrusion Prevention worked immediately (Syspeace) and all communications woith other servers was ok.
Here’s a quick how to and what you’ll have to keep in mind when restoring from a network share
A few things to keep in mind when restoring from a network share and booting up in a USB sick though.
* Make sure you have DHCP server on the same network
* After selecting the backupimage to restore, REMOVE the USB Stick you booted from . Even if you choose to exclude drives from the restore process (in the advanced section I think it was) you’ll get an error message stating “Incorrect prameter” if the USB stick is still attached. A bug. feature ? Don’t know what to call it really. Weird. I’ve seen it everytine I’ve done this so now I’m used to it.
* When rebooting the server,you may end up a server that want’s to be repaired so you’ll need to have the LOCAL administrator password for it or söme kind of software to help you fix any hardware diferences. I’ve got a favourite with Evault’s BMR that’s a great and easy to use tool to get the job done quickly but not everyone has access to it.
* When the server is up & running and you’ve set the correct IP address and stuff, be sure to remove any devices no longer present in the new server by starting a command prompt and entering:
c:> set devmgr_show_nonpresnet_devices=1 [ENTER]
c:> devmgmt.msc [ENTER]
Choose to “SHow hidden devices” and remove any device that’s “greyed out”
Now, you should be good to go. It worked flawlessly for us last night, apart from that we spent hours and hours trying to understand why we couldn’t use the locally attached USB drives that contained the backups.
In this case, it was a good thing that it wasn’t a Disaster Recover scenario so it wasn’t the end of the world really but if it had been, I wouldn’t be laughing really.
JufCorp
