How do I restore a second drive????

[colin_marr]

I have downloaded the demo version of SR. Im using it on a test machine that has server 2003 on it and exchange 2003.

There seem to be several issues along the way but I have found some solutions for the problems. eg the 00012 crc error anyway .... I have got past that.

Now when I do a restore I can restore the C drive to a completely separate computer and drive after boothing with the boot disk that come with the demo, but, how do I restore the E: drive. When I try to restore both drives which was backed up at the same time it only restoresthe C: drive. the E backup says invalid drive.  With an red X on it. This is when restoring based on date.

Then I try to restore individual drives based on File, (connecting over network to the backups) The c: drive seems to restore, but then the d: drive still seems to not be valid.  I cant really see where to read about restoring separate drives although there are a few scant mentions of it in the help.

I have tryed doing it from an unpartiioned free space of the drive, I have tryed partitiononing and formating in ntfs with a linux program. but still when I click on the drive it says Target drive unallocated ec950006 the destination is not valid,

I don't get it how can I restore a system ?

Thanks.

[marcogsp]

This seems to be more of an issue when restoring to another computer. When doing a Restore Anyware recovery, you have to select by filename instead of date.  The index file created by the imaging process is only useful when restoring to the same computer.  

Although not as efficient, it is possible to restore one drive at a time without having to reboot into the recovery environment.  Just execute the single drive restoration and go back as many times as needed within the recovery session.  As stated before, no need to reboot.  I had to do this today with a lab server that has five volumes, so I know what you are experiencing.  Remember, you have to select by file name for this process

Even when you can select multiple drives successfully, the recovery process will only process one drive at a time anyway  The revised process I spoke of just introduces more human inefficiency into the process.

Make sure you select the option to restore the drive signature when doing the restoration.  Since this is an Exchange server, you want the recovered server to see you drive letters exactly like the old server.

[colin_marr]

I will try this again thank. But do I have to divide the drive up before hand. eg one drive two partitions. Or do I just create the c drive ajust the partition so there is enought space for a second and then select the second unpartitions space and put the recovery there.

Thanks.

[marcogsp]

BESR can adjust the partition sizes on the fly.  When editing the selection, you have to Delete drive for the automatic selection that BESR made.  The select the free space on the drive, and the option to adjust the partition size will become available.  Repeat for the second partition if needed

[colin_marr]

I think  what you are saying is.

Delete all the data on the destination drive.
When you restore it now, check off resize and set the value to some value that will take all of the data of the drive you are restoring eg C:

I have done that and C drive appears to restore fine. (I have never booted anything yet)

However it's always the second drive that is the problem. I have tried it yet again and basically same problems.

I have attempted to restore it with the "restore disk signature " but it is greyed out. I have checked the KB on symantec and there is not one article found when I looked up "grey" in the search engine for SR.

The original is a sata drive and IM restoring onto an ATA. I dont suppose that has any bering on it?

When I click on the partition that is unpartitioned to restore the E: drive (second partition) after I have restored the C drive I always get the "destination not valid" It just does seem to work. I have tried creating the partiton in NTFS or not but same error.

Perhaps the greyed out box is telling me something I dont understand. But I get this even when I delete the whole disk. I can restore the C but the box is still greyed out.
regards

[marcogsp]

Perhaps a reboot is in order to get the second partition to restore.  Generally it isn't needed, but this might be a rare case since you are working with older technology.

You may also want to run a space needed calculation.  The rough calculation is:

Source partition size / 6 + Data size on partition.

i.e.  100GB partition with 40 GB of Data  would be 100 divided by 6 + 40 = 66.7GB needed to sucessfully restore.

I have no supporting documentation, but my experience tells ne that the percentage of space utilization will also affect this calculation.  A large drive with very little space used will not need as much space as calculated by the abo\ve formula.  However, higher space utilization will definitely require more space for a successful restoration

[colin_marr]

Well after some more trial and error, I have learned more and more. One of the issues is that the drive while it should have been big enought for some reason was not. Not sure why that is. Anyway. It installed finally.

Now Im getting error
The system is not fully installed please run setup again

and

Security Account Manager Initialization failed because of the following error : Directory Service cannot start. Error status : 0xc00002e1. Please click on ok to shutdown the system. You can use the recovery console to diagnose the system further.

So we move forward another step.

[marcogsp]

Apparently this Exchange server is also a doman controller. The Security Account Manager  error usually occurs if a drive letter gets channged on one of the drives holding the databases or logs.  Most likely, not all the drives needed to run this server were imaged or restored, and/or the drive signatures retaining the drive letter assignments were not applied properly

MS technet article on the error above:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258062

Try restoring the system again and just overlay the restoration on the drives already created.  If other drives need to be restored in order to make the server complete, then ignore the last sentence and start from scratch again, or add additional drive space to the test server..  As mentioned before, make sure you select the option to restore the drive signature when doing the restoration.

Make sure to test this recovery in a lab environment.  tersting on your production network could wreak havoc with AD replication and Exchange services.

[colin_marr]

Thanks thats helpfull. Unfortunetely the error does not allow you to use the microsoft document, that is it keeps rebooting. It gives the error that I mentioned then it will not let you get any further and reboots.

Im going to try to restore again as you have mentioned. there are three drives C: D(cd) and E: drive

So I think what you are saying is restore and make sure you use the restore drive signagure options.

I find this frustrating. The instructions with the software Im not sure are very clear and dont have clear steps.

I persever.

[colin_marr · Accepted solution]

Your advice was very helpfull. It appears I have restored the Exchange server which is also a domain controller onto different hardware.

For anyone who is playing the home game .... this is the way I did it. (by the way this is a demo done in a  lab test for proof of concept so I could play about w/out any worries)

1. Eelete all partitions on drive. Destination drive, Start fresh boot off boot SR boot cd.
2. First restore the C drive. / Do not reboot at the end if there is a second drive (and there was with me E:\)
3. Allow the C drive to be the primary drive / set it to reboot.
4. I could not set to restore the original "Disk signature" for the C drive. Maybe it doesnt have to because its the C drive and its obviously the C drive ??
5. Restore master boot / No.
6 Set to restore to new hardware Yes / it was a different computer with different hardware.
7. Set to restore using the filename of the backup not the Date method

Once its done with C:

Second drive E:
Now restore the second drive. The problems I ran into may have been because our second drive is E not D. Then when the domain and email start up it could not find the e drive presumably because it thought it was on D. In other words it gets confused on drives after C: and mapped wrong drives. Then you are stuck in this loop of errormessage and reboots, so you cant use any MS programs (easily anyway) to resolve the issue.
Anyway to resolve this I think the key as was pointed out to me is to make sure you check to restore the original disk signature. This I asume puts back the drive letter properly. Use the same settings as for C: accept dont make bootable and make sure to restore that signature.

Then when it restarted it gave some errors about domain, but then kind of did some rebuilding, then some finding of drivers and finally after 1/2 an hour or so I was given a nice login.

Hope that helps.