Ghosting an Existing NT Server 4 to a new Server ..

[trotter]

I'm looking into upgrading the current Server in place as it is Old and slow,I was wondering if Ghosting is a good tool to use to Copy it to the New Server.
It presently has 3 Drives 520meg /1.5gig / 1.5gig.
I know about the SID, but I will not have to change it as the old server will be taken off the Domain for the new one. Any tips would be great. Thanks

 

[Zelandakh]

If you are going to keep the same server name, want the same SID and are happy with 3 volumes then yes go for it. But you'll then need to use partition magic to resize the volumes. usually more trouble than it is worth...

Do it the old fashioned way - by hand.

 

[trotter]

Thanks, I was mainly ghosting it because the Company does not have the Sware that is on the Server so I'm unable to build it by hand.
My main concern was it having issues related to new Hware in the new machine (detecting it and so on...)
Thanks again.

 

[johncurtis]

If you have different hardware/devices on the new server you can never be sure if ghosting is a viable solution. You will have to try it and see if you can change any drivers afterwards. Why not do a test imaging and see if it works?

 

[yizhar]

HI.

* Verify you have a good, current and complete backup before anything.
* Create another complete backup - always be on the safe side.

* Install drivers for the new server SCSI controller and for IDE on the current server. This may help when trying to start a copy of the server on the new hardware.

* I always prefer using BACKUP and RESTORE over ghosting for 2 major reasons:
1) This is an excelent test for what your backups are worth, and that you know what to do in case...
2) You have no problems with paritions sizes since you recreate the partitions.

So you install OS on new server, install Service Pack and backup program, then restore from your tape.
It is recommended to make the temporary install in a different folder, like WINNTTMP .
It is recommended to create an 8gb NTFS partition for drive C of the new server before installing. This can be done by placing the new empty disk as a secondary disk in an existing NT machine like your current server.

Ghost can do the copy much faster, but as I mentioned there are important advantages on using the backup.

The copying and testing can be done on a IDE disk to see if it works, then on the new SCSI disks.


* After that you start the restored server on new hardware.
You should now hope that the server will load - You can not know until you try.
(Remember that you installed the Disk Controller driver before?)
Errors with the NIC driver will not prevent the server from loading and can be handled later.

In the worth case, you can not boot the imaged server. More chances are that it will boot but you have to try.

Bye
Yizhar Hurwitz

http://come.to/yizhar

http://teachers.sivan.co.il/yizhar

 

[RGI]

Make backups of course.
Enter your new server in the net as a bdc
Upgrade the bdc to a pdc (the old one wil become a bdc, this always comes in handy)
Chose if you want to migrate the data or not (i don't know why you want the upgrade)and adjust your logonscripts to the new locations.

 

[tmasso]

I agree with Yizhar, Backup/Restore is a much more reliable method of migrating Server Data/Apps than ghosting, especially if the purpose of the exercise is to upgrade your server hardware. In order for a ghost image to work 100% reliably, it must be loaded onto a machine that is identical to the machine it was taken from - which in this case completely contradicts the purpose of the exercise.

I must admit that although I use Ghost regularly for deploying desktop builds, I've never considered using for a server migration. My guess is that; at best you will end up creating extra work for yourself in locating and replacing defunct hardware drivers and resizing your partitions, and at worst the newly ghosted machine will just fail to boot altogether.

 

[trotter]

Thanks to everyone who replied .
The Installation was successful I did not Ghost it in the end, I removed the Hard Drives Installed them in the new Server and added the New 30gig drive after that.
All I had to do was load the new nic driver.
Thanks for your help