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Imaging a DC

Discussion in 'Windows Server System' started by jeffuk123, 2008/02/19.

  1. 2008/02/19
    jeffuk123

    jeffuk123 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hello

    We have a client who has a domain controller with Small Business Server 2003 and using Exchange within the SBS.

    At present they only have one hard drive as an existing IT company messed things up.

    The hard drive is clearly on its way out. In reality the client needs a new server but cannot afford one.

    A colleague has suggested he might ghost image the existing hard drive to a new hard drive and then setup a mirrored hardware RAID with two new hard drives (one having the image on).

    My question is:-

    Do you think this is a good idea?
    Do you foresee any problems?
    Will there be problems with the existing SID and/or Exchange?


    Finally, as daft as this may sound, I have never setup a mirrored hardware RAID after imaging one hard drive to a new one and then adding another for the mirror. Does anyone see problems with this and is mirroring the RAID straightforward if one hard drive already has the image on and the other does not prior to the RAID configuration?

    Sorry for all the questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Jeff
     
  2. 2008/02/19
    ReggieB

    ReggieB Inactive Alumni

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    As far as the OS is concerned, a pair of hardware mirrored disks appear as a single disk. Therefore, the procedure should be:
    • Install two new disks (and the RAID controller?)
    • Use the RAID system firmware utility to create a mirrored pair
    • Restore the image as a new partition on the new mirrored disk space.
    That should work with Ghost. If you are using a difference imaging package, it would be worth checking with the documentation.
     

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  4. 2008/02/19
    jeffuk123

    jeffuk123 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks Reggie

    I have a ghost floppy disk that I have sometimes used to image one hard drive to another configuring them obviously as IDE master and slave prior to imaging.

    Could I use this ghost floppy to do the image for the RAID and if so how would I set this up internally in the server. Sorry, doing it this way is completely new to me.

    Hope you know what I mean!

    Regards,
    Jeff
     
  5. 2008/02/20
    ReggieB

    ReggieB Inactive Alumni

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    I'd use a large USB hard drive. You'll need to add DOS USB drivers to the ghost floppy disks so that the USB drive becomes available. Copy an image of the original disks to the USB hard drive. Disconnect the original disk (so if you hit a problem, it is easy to return to the original, and it is also clear of the 'whoops, formatted the wrong disk' issues). Put in the new disks and create the RAID 1 mirror. Create a new partition on the mirrored pair from the USB drive source.

    Do you have budget for this? What I'm outlining is a way to do it if I had no budget.

    Nowadays there are slicker ways of doing this sort of thing. For example, with VMWare you could create a virtual machine that was a copy of your existing system, then run it in a virtual environment running on the new mirrored disks.

    Or you could use a dedicated server imaging solution that would also take a lot of the hard work out of this. Have a look at the Acronis' server systems. Not only would something like this deal with your current issue, it would also give you excellent disaster recovery potential going forward.
     
  6. 2008/02/20
    jeffuk123

    jeffuk123 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks Reggie for your response.

    I'll check out the VMware and the Acronis soon.

    May I ask a question, forgive any naivety here.

    Would the image work, if I did the following:-

    1) installed Ghost software onto the single existing hard drive.
    2) Then ghosted an image of it to a cd or dvd.
    3) Then setup the RAID with the 2 new hard drives
    4) Then simply booted from the cd or dvd with the image on, onto the RAID drives. Would this pull the image from the dvd onto the RAID drives.

    Many thanks,
    Jeff
     
  7. 2008/02/26
    psuedo

    psuedo Inactive

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    Jeff

    I think you need to look at some form of bare metal restore software. Something like Symantec Live State Recovery Server. This takes an image of the entire system -- irrespective of the hardware it is running on---

    It also gives you the ability to restore to totally different hardware which is what you are looking for. I don't think Acronis has this ability?

    Ideally you don't want to setup a mirrored disk RAID, you really should be looking at a RAID 5 setup. This is three disks rather than two, it provides both mirroring and parity, meaning if one disk failed then the system will continue to operate will you replace the broken disk.
    If you just had the two disk running in a mirrored RAID 1 then if you fails the whole system fails.... for providing the best service to your client, which would you prefer???

    The actually restoration of data shouldnt be a massive issue, just keep the original hard disk, if it doesn't work, at least you can plug this back in while you figure it out..
     
  8. 2008/02/27
    jeffuk123

    jeffuk123 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks psuedo,

    Great advice.

    Jeff
     

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