How to restore the AD Server from Tapes.

[Rampandu]

Hi,

We have installed Backup Exec 2010 R2 on our Active Directory. 

We used to take daily, weekly and monthly backups on tapes. The daily backups only running successfully. Unfortunately The Weekly and Monthly backups are getting more than the sigle disk. So We used to take backup on single tape, later we were canceling the job.

Recently our AD Server got crashed. So we are going to install OS on new hard drives. After that we paln to install backup exec and wish to get back the system state backup from any one of the daily backup tape or Full Backup Tape.

With this shall it restore the AD Server with all the softwares which are installed previously. We have backup exec, firewall software and printer drivers and certificate installed on our AD?

Please suggest me how better i can use the tapes in this case?

Regards,

Ram.

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

Hi Ram,

Best bet is to get hold of the Admin Guide (check the link below if you don't have this), and check Chpt. 17 on DR recovery of an AD server, specifically:

■ About a manual disaster recovery of a local Windows computer (includes non-authoritative and authoritative restore of Active Directory for a domain controller)

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC2211

I would suggest not simply trying to restore the domain controller...

Thanks!

[Rampandu]

Thanks Craig V.

I have the Admin Gudie. I will follow it. 

Thanks for the suggestion.

Ram.

[Rampandu]

I have some doubts here.

When ever full backup runs it takes more than one tape. So we used to cancel the job after it done full backup partially on a single tape. Hope our DC backup will come on the First Tape only. So shall we use this tape to get back the DC data?

Full backup is done on May 31st on two tapes, but it was cancelled at the time of verification. But incremental/defferential backups are going well from Mon to Thrusday. Can we use the tape which job was canceled at the time of verification?

As our daily backup is going well, can we restore data from the 20th Sep 2012 tape after restoring from full backup tape i.e., 31st May 2012.

Regards,

Ram.

[CraigV]

You can try, but with it being an incomplete backup you never know where it stopped. So you could end up with unrestorable data, or corrupted data at the time of restore!