Re: Need help restoring after failed hard drive

Thanks for the tips. This was a valuable lesson learned.
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"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote:

In news:B4EBB15F-2DC4-45EA-85A8-6A84CA94530C@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
SolRodriguez <SolRodriguez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> typed:
This will be my first restoration and I want to make sure I get it
right.

The only hard drive failed on a client's SBS 2003. It's a small
network with 2 client computers/users and the SBS. Their main
business app data is backed up daily and stored on the local drive
and on a zip drive. I'm confident that it is in good shape.
However, the system state was only stored on the local hard drive. I
got the drive to boot up one last time (even though when I ran chkdsk
there were hundreds of lines of errors...) The problem is that I
checked the backup log, and all the backups of the system state that
they have were failed backups according to the log. Key files/dlls
etc. were unreadable so the backups quit and just failed.

I've resolved that we're ok to reinstall SBS 2003 on a new drive,
reconfigure, and put the main busines app and data back on. My
question is: since the client machines were "married" to the original
Domain/server, if I install it from scratch and add the client
computers to Active Directory, will it create new profiles on the
client machines when I join them to the domain, or will they think
it's the same domain and simply log in as normal. How can I keep the
existing profiles so the users don't lose their MyDocs, Desktop, etc.
if their machines think they are joining a new domain and they create
new profiles?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Sol

Ouch. This doesn't sound like fun, sorry. Restoration isn't really a good
word to use here, I'm afraid...there's nothing to restore from!

Firstly, a single hard drive does not a server make - if you're going to
have to rebuild this box (and yes, you're going to have to rebuild this box)
I suggest that you do it right and get hardware RAID in there (even SATA,
although I prefer SCSI/SAS). Also make them buy some decent hardware for
their backups, and make sure you've assigned a tape changer in SBSBackup so
that someone is monitoring the backup logs. Also, someone needs to be
monitoring the server's health in the future. If they weren't getting
successful system state backups *and* proper online Exchange backups, you're
in for some data loss if the drive is completely hosed - but maybe they
weren't using Exchange much. In the future, note that running chkdsk /f on a
possibly failing server hard drive is not a good idea. You might have been
able to salvage more off the drive the last time it booted (even with
imaging software).

Anyway - not trying to sound like the Voice of Doom. Re your user's
profiles - you can do the following on each workstation:

Create a local user called something obvious: TempJoe (or something), for
the domain user Joe whose credentials/profile is cached on that workstation.
Log into the local machine as TempJoe once
Log out, and log back in as an account with local admin rights.
Go to control panel, system, advanced, and find the profiles settings
Find Joe's cached domain profile, and select it, and click "copy to...." and
browse to the new TempJoe profile path ( \documents and settings\tempjoe )
Log back in as TempJoe and make sure it looks like he's got the domain user
profile settings you expect - test thoroughly.

Then:
Make sure you know the local admin password, and then take the workstation
out of the domain
When you've got your new server built, join the workstations again using
/connectcomputer
Select the new domain user Joe, and when prompted for the local user profile
to copy, pick TempJoe.

Some things may not work right (shortcuts, etc) but you should be good to go
overall. Hope this will prove a valuable learning opportunity for the
client. I'd also suggest you start using folder redirection so there is
really no data to speak of stored on the workstations, esp where My
Documents is concerned. I also like to use roaming profiles so they're all
backed up as well, but that isn't mandatory.




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Need help restoring after failed hard drive
    ... state that they have were failed backups according to the log. ... keep the existing profiles so the users don't lose their MyDocs, ... for the domain user Joe whose credentials/profile is ... Log into the local machine as TempJoe ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Need help restoring after failed hard drive
    ... Everything's intact including profiles, etc. ... be to get them to actually check the backups consistently (or pay me to check ... for the domain user Joe whose credentials/profile is ... Log into the local machine as TempJoe ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Need help restoring after failed hard drive
    ... network with 2 client computers/users and the SBS. ... they have were failed backups according to the log. ... existing profiles so the users don't lose their MyDocs, Desktop, etc. ... the domain user Joe whose credentials/profile is cached on that workstation. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: DNS configuration
    ... That's a good reason to use folder redirection. ... Application Data, and Desktop, in a custom GPO, linked at the MyBusiness ... Keep your profiles tinytinytiny! ... Profiles\single domain user folders: the same as yours: ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: DNS configuration
    ... thank you for your roaming profiles guidelines; ... Profiles and Redirected folders differ from yours: ... Profiles\single domain user folders: the same as yours: ... I created two GPO, one for computers policies and one for users ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)