We already have V2i Protector Server Edition and i can't recommend it
highly enough. It takes a daily backup of both our SBS boot partition and
our D: drive email and user data partition and copies an image to a
networked drive.
Last week our server managed to get itself into a right pickle, and the
Active Directory data managed to get corrupt. I obviously got into a right
panic, but all i had to do was boot using the V2i CDROM, and hey presto,
our server was back online using the boot image that had been taken the
previous night. And it went fine, no problems. Booted first time, all the
Active Directory, Exchange email, etc was back and in use within the hour.
And all this from a backup of a live system!! No reboots were needed (apart
from when i had to restore it)
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to restore the V2i backup images
directly to our new server, as its completely different hardware. But i
have successfully installed Windows 2000 Server, made it an additional
domain controller, replicated the Active Directory info, and reinstalled
SBS 2K to it. I had to seize all the FSMO roles and the global catalog, but
its up and running the same as our existing server, same domain name,
machine name, etc.
What i was attempting was to use the V2i backup image of our user and email
databases (which are on our D: drive partition) and restore them straight
to our new server. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as though V2i Protector
will let me restore to a partition that is smaller than the original one,
even if it doesn't use all the disk space. I have been advised by Symantec
support to upgrade to 2.01, which took me about three days to download and
didn't even solve my problem. On looking at the readme that comes with the
2.01 update, it says, and i quote:-
You cannot copy or restore a volume into hard disk space (either freespace
or an existing partition) that is smaller than the original size of the
volume that was backed up.
So god knows why they advised me to upgrade!?! I wasted three days trying
to download this thing, only for it not to work! I wasn't a happy bunny.
Anyway, i'm gonna see if i can use PowerQuest's ServerMagic to make the D:
drive partition slightly smaller, take a backup image of it, and then use
that to restore to our new server.
I don't want to much about too much with it, incase i lose data, but then i
do have a backup from last night. If not, i'll look into using scopy or
robocopy, but then i've a feeling i might have issues with getting access
to all the files due to permissions, and with files being in use.
Any one else got any bright ideas???
--
Thanks in advance
Dan Williams
Andrew said:
[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a
copy was sent to the cited author.]
We're trying to copy our SBS 2000 user and company data to a new
server, but the partition on our new server is slightly smaller than
our existing one.
For example, our existing IDE data partition is 62GB in size, but it
does haves 19GB of free space. Our new SCSI hard drive partition is
only 60GB.
Does anyone know of any software i can use to clone the partition to
our new server? I'd prefer to be able to create an image of the data
without having to reboot it as its our primary domain controller and
exchange server. I can then use this image to restore on our new
server and keep all the NTFS file permissions. The software has to
work on Windows 2000 Server.
PowerQuest's ServerMagic, which is the server version of Partition
Magic should be able to do it. I've used the regular PM to go up and
down in size.
You may run into problems with the permissions unless that is also
bootable. I'm not certain if permissions contain ID's that are tied
to the hardware, or at least that particular install of Windows.
The Windows resource kit has SCOPY, which is just like COPY but will
also copy permissions.
Forget it with ServerMagic for NT!...
You must be referring to VolumeManager 2.0, the aforementioned
PartitionMagic for Servers...
Source:
http://www.powerquest.com/volumemanager/
NOTE: The software has been released for Windows 2000 Server/Advanced
Server, but not for the Small Business Server Edition.
A better sand safer solution must be the recently released of the V2i
Protector 2.0(1) Small Business Server; a proven solution for your server to
also clone SBS System/Data Volumes *without* abandoning a running server.
Source:
http://www.powerquest.com/v2i/protector/sbe/index.cfm
Btw, ServerMagic for NT has been discontinued
