NTBackup "System State" & A Default "Exclude" Of NTDS\*

[SchwaAsmism]

Hi,

I am getting ready to "adprep" an ailing 2003 R1(?) DC because it is holding back my 2003 R2 from promoting to an DC.

Anyway, I went to experiment with NTBackup -- hoping to backup the "System State" -- and find that the "Exclude Files" has defaulted to excluding "C:\WINNT\NTDS\*" and "D:\WINNT\NTDS\*"...

Anyone know why this is so? It would seem to be excluding the very thing it needs to be including to get a backup of the AD; and, looking at the detailed log produced by NTBackup, it show no sign of having backed-up NTDS.dit... Isn't that the very file that houses the AD db?

What's more is I even took the exclusions out and it still seemed to exclude NTDS.dit...

Help?

 

[karlisi]

You don't need to backup these files, most of them are locked anyway. AD is part of System State backup on Windows 2003 DC.

===
Karlis
ECDL; MCSA

 

[SchwaAsmism]

Thanks. I went ahead and AdPrep-ed... all went well, so I didn't need to freak-out and I didn't need to restore my NTBackup. I still can't figure out why NTDS.dit isn't vital in case a restore is necessary because I've heard it is the AD more-or-less.

Anyway, thanks again for the reply.

 

[lumpusmaximus]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727048.aspx