BCM400, creating a back-up disaster recovery harddrive

[Boomarang]

So in retrospect after going through a very costly system down scenario, I am trying to develop a method of preventing such a long down time, or creating a faster disaster recovery plan.

Is it possible to copy a BCM400 harddrive to another (aka ghost the image) to keep on hand as a disaster rocovery option? My thinking is that as many BCM400's that I have in the field with different patch levels and different backup images, it would be easier for my larger clients to have a redundant drive setting off-site with their backup server and other secure items in case of another total system failure. Hardrives are cheap, and copying data from one to another is easy.

Has anyone done this with success?

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

Yes. I've done this and I carry a BCM 50 version 1, 2 and 3 SATA 40 Gig hard disk with me all of the time, along with a BCM 3.6, 3.7 & 4.0 20 Gig IDC hard disk for eash of the software releases.

In addition to this, I also carry as another method of backup a SATA /IDE to USB connector and Acronis images for all of the systems above on a portable external hard drive.

I've done a FAQ on this website, but you can see a better copy at..

http://www.ghtrout.com/bcm/Replacing_a_BCM_3_6_or_4_0_hard_drive.zip

All the best

Firebird Scrambler
Meridian Programmer in the UK

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbromley

If it's working, then leave it alone!.

 

[Boomarang]

How did you copy the data?

Obviously I need to remove the Drive from the BCM, but did you use any specific procedure or software?

My fear is running into any Nortel Proprietary security measures that would block this.

 

[dj4020]

If you use Ghost it does a sector by sector copy doesn't care whats there justs makes an exact copy of whats there. If you are wanting a unprogrammed copy as a way of getting to any site with a operational Image then you'll need like Firebird said a disk for each Release, Platform.

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

I removed the hard disk and used a program called Acronis to backup up all of the partitions into one file using the sector by sector method. Screen shots are listed in the file that you can download.

All the best

Firebird Scrambler
Meridian Programmer in the UK

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbromley

If it's working, then leave it alone!.