One Button Disaster Recovery/ IDR & Blue screen of death

[itgetsmybackup]

I am testing the use of backupexec v9 IDR option in conjunction with the HP One Button Disaster Recovery Support and have run into a problem with my boot-from-tape recovery. I am able to create the bootable tape image, write it to tape, boot from the tape and start a restore, which performs ok until after the first reboot when set-up goes into GUI mode (at which point the IDR wizard should kick in as I recall). Instead, 3/4 of the way through the start-up, the system crashes, with the BSOD varying, but always referring to ntoskrnl.exe. If I do a parallel install, ntoskrnl.exe is present in the IDR copy of the OS and looks ok. I have ensured I have the correct firmware in the HP DDS3 drive, the correct BIOS on the adaptec 2940UW scsi controller and am using W2K Advanced Srvr, SP2. The process works fine with a bootable CD, but we don't general have CD-writers, so I am drawn towards OBDR. I have repeated the process, from scratch, and tried a few variations during set-up (such as reformatting the drive, or leaving it alone etc) to no avail. What's more, the backup itself is fine as I use it in conjunction with the CD to restore the system properly each time....

 

[Jonmonster]

Does the IDR Restore Wizard ever come up before the blue screen occurs? Have you restored any data at all yet?

You may want to try a couple of things. First of all, make sure you are using the most recent version of Backup Exec. I believe a new version of 9.0 has just recently been released to address many release issues. I'm not sure how many of them were IDR issues, though.

Second I discovered that it is a good practice to use a disk eraser when simulating the disaster. I use Active Killdisk. There is a free version of it on

http://www.killdisk.com

and it is very easy to use. The reason you want to do this is because the new IDR auto-partitioning software for W2K puts down a copy of the old master boot record in the same spot as before. If you used Fdisk or a similar utility to blow away the partition, the software will simply bring back the MBR when you run the IDR making all of your data accessible once again. You could manually blow the partitions away during the W2K Text-Mode Setup but then you will just have to recreate them again from scratch. This could become a pain if you had multiple partitions or a utility partition.

If you use the disk eraser software you should only need to run it for about 2% or so in order to blow away the first portion of the HDD. Then run your IDR. It will appear to the IDR that you are using a new disk now and you will not have to worry about original data getting in your way. This makes for a more realistic disaster scenario.

Hope this helps. Let me know.

Thanks,

-J

 

[itgetsmybackup]

No, I never get to the wizard with the OBDR (but can from CD following the exact same process !)

I won't get a chance to try a clean disk or a new version (which was the veritas advice too) until July as I'm off on leave, but I'll give it a go on my return....