Cloning dynamic disks? 1

[lmwtech]

I have a project coming up in which I will need to clone a dynamic disk for backup and precautionary reasons. This pc is running windows 2000 small business server. It has two disks that are dynamic and have been mirrored in the windows disk management software interface. What would be the best way to clone a disk for the reasons given in this setup? The system is fragmented extremely bad and the customer is worried that defragmenting may cause a system failure or data loss. So they have requested I do the above and then defrag the system. Thats the madness behind the method.

thanks in advance for the input

lmwtech

 

[wolluf]

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/kb/?aid=504

says true image server supports dynamic disks (I've always avoided them like the plague as only MS utilities could access them).

btw - is the defragmentation actually causing a problem (I find it rarely does on ntfs - even if high % defragmentation reported)

 

[lmwtech]

The system has really slowed down according to the customer. But... I'm wondering if a good spyware and adware cleaning might be part of the solution. This customer doesn't take precations for that type of thing. They only call me for somewhat serious problems and choose to try to take care of most of their own needs to try and save money. I agree with you about the defragmentation probably not slowing the system. But this customer does have irreplacable data and as a precaution i would like to do a complete copy of the system. i'm not as familiar with disk imaging,(even though i should be). This is why I would like to clone if possible. Ghost is really all i've ever worked with and that was always disk to disk. Any more suggestions maybe?
lmwtech

 

[wahnula]

lmwtech,

One easy solution would be to take a single disk, equal or greater to the array in question, connect to IDE or SATA port (USB/FW if absolutely necessary) on the problem machine, and image the array to the new disk using Ghost 2003. I say Ghost 2003 because later versions will not work with SBS, and acronis' server version is $700, while you can still get Ghost 2003 for around $30 and it should work on that OS. It will warn that the clone will not be dynamic, but who cares?

Once the clone is complete, shut down, disconnect the RAID drives (mark which one goes where), and try to boot from the clone. If it works, you are golden, if not, simply reconnect the old drives. Make sure you run it long enough to be sure it's a good clone, open & run all apps, etc.

I highly recommend your clients NOT use the software RAID offered in Windows. A 3Ware 9000S card is around $350, and offers all the RAID options a SBS should need, plus it is robust and has excellent US-based support, important to your DIY customers (I know because I am a DIY admin/user).

Tony

 

[technome]

I had no success with Acronis Server 9.1 on a Win 2000 Pro wks, but Ghost 2003 worked as Tony stated.



........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[technome]

Little correction, I tried to clone the disk and it was not possible, but the link refers to creating an image, then restoring the image , which results in either a choice of dynamic or basic disk, this I did not try.

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[lmwtech]

technome,
You refer to a link. Could you post the link so i can check it out?
Thanks
lmwtech

 

[technome]

Was referring to the link Wolluf posted above.
You could clone the dynamic disk you have by "breaking" the mirror, then copy the boot files from c: to the other disk, which gives you the ability to boot from the second dynamic disk without a boot floppy. After this, remove the second dynamic disk and slip in the new disk, reestablish the mirror, the drives will sync after a period of time. The removed drive is a clone.

Read this post I made, about 3/4 the way down....

http://web2.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15270&SearchTerms=raid1

My issue with cloning was due to Win 2000 pro, unlike Win2000 server, you can not easily create a mirror with the pro version without registry changes.

A note on defragmentation, in 25 years as working on servers/wks I have never had defragmenting programs destroy any files. Now if you have an unmapped bad disk sector or cross linked files, defragging may appear to cause problems, but in this case the damage is already done. Run chkdsk first if it would make you feel safer, but honestly def rag programs will not cause a problem. Used every version of Windows OS based defraggers, Norton speedisk, Diskeeper, Perfectdisk etc., no issues


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[lmwtech]

Is manipulating an image much different than cloning disk to disk?
lmwtech

 

[technome]

Not sure what you mean by manipulating an image?

As a note, in general, cloning a disk involves copying a disk, at the disk level, not file level, sector by sector. In the case of my Ghost clone, the clone becomes a basic disk, which is a sector by sector copy, with manipulation of the disk signature to make it "basic", making it a 99.99% clone.

For the future, purchase a SCSI adapter or raid adapter capable of raid. Easier to create/maintain/restore from and a bit safer. OS raid1 using Dynamic disk relies on the OS, should major corruption occur, the raid setup can be affected; that said, I have had very few issues using OS based raid 1 over many years.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[lmwtech]

I meant creating an image to then copy that image to a new disk to restore functionality. I like the earlyer suggestion about breaking the mirror and copying boot files. But What exactly do you mean. I've never done something like this so I'm very unsure a bout it all. How do you break the mirror and then copy boot files to the right place on the mirrored disk?
Sorry for so many stupid questions but I want to really understand what I'm dealing with before I do this. I have to do this this sunday for my customer.
lmwtech

 

[technome]

When you have two dynamic disks, and you create a mirror, the two disk are identical, except the second disk does not contain the boot files. Without the boot files it is not capable of starting Windows, so you have a choice of creating a boot floppy or copying the boot files to the disk so it will boot.

If you go into Disk Manager, if a mirror is in place, right click one of the drives and you see "break mirror". Click it
follow any instructions.

Once the mirror is "broken", you now have two separate disk. On the boot drive, general the c: drive, in the root directory of the drive (using explorer), you will see the files needed to boot Windows; the same Windows files needed to create a boot floppy, as described in the link.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325879

From the c: drive, copy these files to the other disk of the broken mirror, to it's root directory. At this point you reinstate the mirror, let it sync up.

Now if lose the first disk of the mirror, and the server will not start, you switch the cable connector from the first disk to the second disk and the server should start.
If you have an SCA backplane, it is even easier, just requiring you to rotate the second disk to the first disk's slot.

The reason I use this method, no floppy required, no boot.ini editing, floppies die in a couple years, they get lost.

Now that I have you totally confused, you might just find it easier to create a boot floppy and edit the boot.ini to boot from the second drive.

To get back to the clone...
Once you have either the boot files copied or a boot floppy, the disk is a clone. You should make it boots as a single drive, as a test. I will refer to it as the "clone" from here on. Remove the "clone" from the machine.
Since at this point there have been no drive failures, the C: will boot. Make sure it does, shut down the machine.

Now if you want to maintain a mirror, plus have a cloned drive....
Obtain a new drive, mount the new drive in the same spot as the clone came from, attach data and power cables, start the machine. Go into Disk Manager and reestablish the mirror. The new disk will sync.
If you just need a clone, and not mirrored disks, put the clone away, start windows, go to disk manager, right click the remaining drive, choose "remove mirror"

The clone can now be placed in safe storage,

This whole procedure is confusing but really quite simple.
If I could write better, it would help

I highly recommend in the future to use a hot swap SCA backplane and a scsi or raid adapter capable of handling hot swapped drives.
It is so simple to create a clone from a raid 1 with the above mentioned hardware...

Pull 1 drive out of a slot, either one; the removed drive is a clone. Place it in safe storage. Place a new drive in the slot you removed the clone drive from. The newer adapters will sync up the mirror automatically. No need to create a boot file, copy files or go into Disk Manager. In 30 seconds you could be done.

Even better, if you have a raid 1 with a "hotspare drive", not need to pull the drive, just fail one of the raid 1 drives, the hotspare kicks in. This cuts down on the wear and tear on the SCA backplane/drive connectors, as they have an approx MTBF of 500 insertions.

Good night, I am beat.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm