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How to create a Disaster Recovery backup?

HerbertK
Level 4

I have "succesfully* " created a Backup from my complete C drive of my SBS2011 server (the green light indicating it would be a good disaster recovery was on) to a external portable USB drive. (* Completed with some exceptions)

What I would expect is that the USB drive must be made bootable so that in case of an emergency the server should be able to boot from the USB drive.

Therefore I selected  the option "Configuration and Settings" -> Create Disaster Recovery Disk.

I selected Next, choose the first selection (From a previous CD DVD or from a folder)  and browsed to my external USB drive. Then Next again. But selecting this gave me the warning"You must provide a valid source Simplified Disaster Recovery Disk."

I think the procedure im following is not correct. Can somebody explain me how to create a bootable External USB drive that contains the backup of my SBS2011 server?

The procedure that I found only tells me the wizard instructions, but that is exactly where I got stuck..

 

 

11 REPLIES 11

Jaydeep_S
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Here are the steps to do it. However, I would advice to keep the B2D folder and the USB based SDR image on the same Disk

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH181347

HerbertK
Level 4

Hi Jaydeep S, Thanks for your quick reply. However I have no idea what I have to do with the CD/DVD players. In the description is said that is must contain a SDR DVD??

I understand that I have make it myself a bootable external USB drive (Backup Exec does that not for me?)

What  is the by me mentioned wizard ment for?

Jaydeep_S
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Backup Exec SDR ISO files can be downloaded from Symantec Fileconnect or BackupExec.com Trailware site.

 

HerbertK
Level 4

Jaydeep, can you please give me some more complete information about the procedure? You have to understand that I have no idea of the total picture how this kind of backup works. 

Trialware? I understood I could make a backup with the version of Backup Exec 2012 I have now, why do i have to download extra ISO files?

As writen in a  previous post, I find the learning curve  of Symantec products pretty steep, a lot of abbreviations and terms used that confuses a starting user.

When i go to www.BackupExec.com I'll end up at http://www.symantec.com/products-solutions/families/?fid=backup-exec and have no Idea what  to do next or what to download

Jaydeep_S
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I think the problem you are having is that you are expecting to be able to make a bootable SDR USB disk, this is however not currently supported

 

SDR boots off a DVD image but can then read the backup sets form USB, so you make a bootable DVD. For most customers using USB and reasonably standard disk controllers in the server, all you need to do is just burn the image from our download to DVD and boot off it with teh USB disk containing teh backups attached.

 

BTW the wizard you ran is to make a custom DVD because you need specific hardware drivers, when you browsed and it gave an error, it expected you to give it the downloaded ISO as to make a custom DVD you use the ISO as a base.

HerbertK
Level 4

Hi Colin,

Thank you for your reply. I now understand that recovering  my server could be seen as a kind of 3 stage rocket. If I  understand correctly:

- First boot from the CD/DVD that is customized with the server specific drivers.

- Next thing would be to use the external USB drive to recover/restore the content of the server itself and

- third step would be to restore eventual other drives (either in the server itself or at other locations if necessary) 

Is that correct?

If that is correct your posting is the first time I've come up such a clear explaination about SDR principle. In another post I already was expecting to create a DVD to make a SDR but there they said I need a USB drive as I had to backup my complete C drive of my folder. I couldn't make any deselections of non important folders.

Now I understand it is a combination of these two steps, both CD/DVD and then using USB drive?

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Very close - you can restore all the drives in the media server in step 2 (as long as they were backed up in the same origional backup job)

Step3 would be restore things like Exchange and SQL Databases that are also located on the recovered server (and if a media server re-enable the original Backup Exec database as well) Most likely if the media server is an SBS server.

Step 4 would be look to recover any remote servers that were also affected by the disaster (possibly also using SDR on each server)

HerbertK
Level 4

The execptions of the succesfull SDR i've made on the external USB drive are all related to sharepoint issues although I deselected them to be excluded from the backup.

I assume I can test this bootup process of the created CD without any harm as long as I don't start with restoring information from the USB drive?

Is it possible to start restoring from tape device with when booted from this recovery CD or do I have to complete the restore action from the server first?  (I saw that there was an option to add extra drivers during the creation of the *iso file.)

Backing up is important, but useless if we do not know if a restore is possible. What would be the best practice to test the next steps (besides booting from the created CD) ?

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

The SDR disk will detect some tape drives (when restoring the media server itself) others may need drivers added so a custom SDR disk making.  Unfortunately I do not have a list of what may need a custom SDR disk. Basic answere is however yes you can restore using SDR when baqckup is on tape.

If restoring a remote server where the media server had used tapes to do the backups then the SDR disk attaches to the media server over the network and does not then need the tape drivers. (bnut of course does need the NIC drivers.)

 

You can do some testing of hardware support without needing to actually start a restore (NIC and disk storage drivers for instance) However I am not sure if a tape drive restore can be tested without actually starting a restore.

 

Lingemaster
Not applicable

I have downloaded the trial version of SSR2013 but could not find the Recovery Disk.iso in the downloaded files. Could you please help me to locate this file. Thanks.

Ste