Advice for BESR Restore/Resize of SBS 2003 Server

[Fieldy]

Hello to all,

We are running out of space on our primary C:\ partition on a SBS 2003 Dell PowerEdge server (Domain controller). This server has one 250GB SATA drive (was mirrored with a second drive, but broke and am now using just one drive from motherboard and not via controller) with a primary C:\ (Boot, OS etc) of 12GB, and a secondary F:\ (data) of 230GB. Because of this, I would like to use the restore/resize functionality of BESR 8.5 to resize the C:\ drive to a newer 1TB drive as it currently has just 1GB left of space, but before doing so, I just wanted to ask advice on whether my process will be correct?

1. Perform full backup of C:\ & F:\  the evening before
2. Swap out old 250GB drive and add new 1TB drive (will add the older 250GB drive back after restore for additional storage)
3. Boot with SRD, Choose 'Restore Computer' option
4. Choose to restore by filename, restore C:\ first (boot, OS), check 'Restore MBR', 'Restore Original Disk Signature', and 'Set Drive Active for Booting' options. uncheck 'Reboot when Finished'. (pulled this from a post on the forums?)
5. Choose new partition size
6. Perform restore, then same again for F:\ drive (data) minus the check 'Restore MBR', 'Restore Original Disk Signature', and 'Set Drive Active for Booting' options.
7. Reboot and perform testing

I do have a question on whether I have to perform recovery point full's of each partition separately for resizing, or can I still do this and restore each recovery point individually from one full back up procedure of both drives? Also, is there anything else that may prove to be a gotcha when performing this procedure?

Many thanks for any advice in advance!

[Jon_R]

The first issue that you may have is that your backup is not likely to work.

To successfully back up a partition, there must be approximately 15-20% free space on the partition being backed up and it must have very little free space fragmentation (a defragmentation of the system will require 15% to complete).

The second issue that may arise is drivers within the recovery environment. To make sure that you have all the drivers that you need on the recovery disk, run the driver validation from the autorun which will pop up if you put the disk in while Windows is running. (If it does not, right click on the drive and select 'Autorun'.)

The restore process that you outlined is mostly correct, but there are a few minor issues.

Steps 1-3 are correct.

Step 4 and 5 are part of the same set of steps, and the options that you want selected are a little off;

1. Choose to restore by filename
2. Restore C:\ first (boot, OS), check 'Restore MBR' and 'Set Drive Active for Booting' options.
3. Choose new partition size
4. Uncheck 'Reboot when Finished'

For the data drive it should look like this;

1. Choose to restore by filename
2. Restore D:\ , check 'Restore Original Disk Signature'.
3. Choose new partition size
4. Check 'Reboot when Finished'

As long as you are not changing any hardware, this should work.

Message Edited by Jon_R on 12-31-2008 02:49 PM

[Fieldy]

Hi Jon,

Many thanks for the reply and Happy New Year!

I have managed to recover back space to allow a 15% defrag, and am doing this now with Diskeeper 2009. I will shut down the auto defrag feature while running the back up and follow the revised steps that you outlined below.

With reference to the drivers, i have made the SRD with my driver set needed, so all set there i believe...

Thanks so much again Jon-much appreciated!

[Fieldy]

Hi Jon,

I ran the procedure that you listed but no luck! It went through everything as was outlined but when i was asked to confirm the restore, it threw back an error message below:

EC950019: The current recovery data is invalid

I loaded and checked the recovery points through the recovery point browser and can navigate through the data-do you know what can be wrong here?

Thanks again for your help!

Fieldy

[Fieldy · Accepted solution]

I worked with support to figure this out. The option was to recompile the image via recovery point browser (highlight image, click on Copy on top menu, follow prompts to complete copy process) This recompiled the image and was able to take and perform the restore.

Another option is to use a Virtual conversion (if you have one) to perform the restore from that...

Great support from the guys on the phones and hope this may help someone if they come up against the same issue?

Cheers!

Fieldy