Copy one server boot disk to another on the same machine

[Ron Hinds]

I'm looking for a solution to completely copy a windows 2000 server boot
disk to a new disk. I will then replace the exisitng disk with the new one
and (hopefully) reboot with everything intact. Something similar to the
drive copy in Norton Ghost, which unfortunately doesn't work on server ;-(
The backup built into windows doesn't seem to have that capability, though I
haven't finished reading up on it yet so I may be wrong. Can anyone
recommend a product that doesn't cost a fortune for accomplishing this? TIA!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm looking for a solution to completely copy a windows 2000 server boot
disk to a new disk. I will then replace the exisitng disk with the new one
and (hopefully) reboot with everything intact. Something similar to the
drive copy in Norton Ghost, which unfortunately doesn't work on server ;-(
The backup built into windows doesn't seem to have that capability, though I
haven't finished reading up on it yet so I may be wrong. Can anyone
recommend a product that doesn't cost a fortune for accomplishing this? TIA!

You can do it for free: Boot your server with a Bart PE boot CD
(http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download), then use xcopy.exe
with the appropriate switches to copy your server disk to the
target disk partition (which must be formatted under Win2000/XP).

Creating a Bart PE CD takes a bit of time. On the other hand
I consider it an essential tool for a system administrator.

 

[Ron Hinds]

though

You can do it for free: Boot your server with a Bart PE boot CD
(http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download), then use xcopy.exe
with the appropriate switches to copy your server disk to the
target disk partition (which must be formatted under Win2000/XP).

Creating a Bart PE CD takes a bit of time. On the other hand
I consider it an essential tool for a system administrator.

Awesome! Thanks - that's just what I was looking for! I could have used this
a while ago...

 

[Guest]

I think you are missing the point of preparing the drive with MS first so the
boot sector is populated. Backup or xcopy just copies files not partition
information.

If you just copied and it won't boot you have a number of options. One is
go into recovery console and run fixmbr and fixboot. As long as ntldr and
ntdetect are at the root you should be fine.

Another approach is run a repair install by booting the OS cd and waiting
for the choice of new or repair. Choose repair.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I think you are missing the point of preparing the drive with MS first so the
boot sector is populated. Backup or xcopy just copies files not partition
information.

If you just copied and it won't boot you have a number of options. One is
go into recovery console and run fixmbr and fixboot. As long as ntldr and
ntdetect are at the root you should be fine.

Another approach is run a repair install by booting the OS cd and waiting
for the choice of new or repair. Choose repair.

You are quite correct, of course. I did not miss these points
but assumed (perhaps wrongly) that the OP was aware of
them too, beeing a system administrator.