Disaster Recovery restore

[RVoigtlaender]

As a Disaster Recovery test I am trying to "rebuild" one of my production servers. The server hardware is different but I'd like to be able to restore the software and NT Directory information (user accounts and groups) to the rebuilt box in case my current production box dies. Does anyone know how to restore the NT directory and registry info?

 

[BruceP]

Try Veritas Backup Exec with the Disaster Recovery Option.

 

[PaulC245]

We have had good luck with the following,


Create a folder on the partition and restore the Registry files(%systemRoot%\System32\config) to it.
You will need to reboot with a DOS disk if your winnt directory is on a FAT partition or a 3rd party utility (like NTFSDOS) if NTFS.

Copy the files Security and Sam from your restored folder to the new %systemRoot%\System32\config. Make sure you don't copy System, you will end up with a non-bootable server.

Reboot and your groups and users are back.

For shares it's more complicated. You need to restore the registry key HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENT CONTROL SET\SERVICES\LANMAN SERVER\SHARES. This varies based on how it was backed up. ARCServe allows a key by key registry backup. Most other products are dropping this because it is not supported for Windows 2000 and a system state backup. Doesn't help when restoring to different hardware.

You may be able to apply the above to registry settings for software, but the best bet is to just reinstall the software and restore the data.

I've been trying to find an official Microsoft suggestion for how to do this with no luck. They always assume you have a functioning server to copy this information from.