Backing up local group name/sid info?

[Paul Hutchings]

As subject really, I've asked this a few times in the past but never seem
to have found a definitive answer.

I'm planning on doing several firmware/SCSI/RAID driver upgrades on our
central fileserver this weekend (Dell 755NAS) and would appreciate some
advice.

It basically runs a cut down version of Windows 2000 server (SAK) and
permissions are regular NTFS done using Users-Global-Local-Resources
permissions.

I intend to ghost the system drive first, but should the worst happen and I
need to rebuild the system drive I'll be left with a clean Windows install
with a 300gb array with lots of ACLs that point to groups that won't exist.

Am I right in thinking that backing up the system state will backup the
groups information on a member server, and how simple should it be to
restore the old group info to the re-installed system drive should the need
arise?

If a System State backup isn't the way to go, how could I achieve the same
thing? I have other servers if there's some util to migrate groups (with
SID info) to a different server and then migrate them back.

Of course, hopefully it won't come to that but..

regards
Paul

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

As subject really, I've asked this a few times in the past but never seem
to have found a definitive answer.

I'm planning on doing several firmware/SCSI/RAID driver upgrades on our
central fileserver this weekend (Dell 755NAS) and would appreciate some
advice.

It basically runs a cut down version of Windows 2000 server (SAK) and
permissions are regular NTFS done using Users-Global-Local-Resources
permissions.

I intend to ghost the system drive first, but should the worst happen and I
need to rebuild the system drive I'll be left with a clean Windows install
with a 300gb array with lots of ACLs that point to groups that won't exist.

Am I right in thinking that backing up the system state will backup the
groups information on a member server, and how simple should it be to
restore the old group info to the re-installed system drive should the need
arise?

If a System State backup isn't the way to go, how could I achieve the same
thing? I have other servers if there's some util to migrate groups (with
SID info) to a different server and then migrate them back.

Of course, hopefully it won't come to that but..

regards
Paul

Three easy ways to backup what you want:

1) ERD
2) SystemState
3) Full image of system partition and boot volume (if it's different
than system partition).

Option 3 is the most complete backup option and will almost guarantee
you least hassle in restoring, even if you have lost your RAID array and
need to rebuild (hardware RAID, that is)

Option 1 is the quickest and dirtiest and will only allow you to restore
registry and the system partition.

Option 2 falls in the middle in terms of how quick and easy it is to
perform/restore and who thoroughly it will restore your system.
Obviously, if you lose the file system, OS, and/or drives, the only
backup that will get you back up and running is the image. Although I
run automated monthly system state backups on my servers, the only thing
I would truly trust is an image and I try to do that once a quarter and
then keep detail change control logs between images so I can "roll
forward" any changes I might need to do after an image restore.

hth