Primary Hard Drive swap

[sothardw]

Hi everyone,

My company has a new account with a company that has been running a single server for multiple locations. The server is running Windows SBS 2008 and acting as the headquarters server for their Dynamics RMS setup.

We are needing to replace the primary hard drive in the server. I am wondering if anyone else has had to go through this process. If so or if not, what do I need to do so that I will not need to ho back and do a complete re-install? Is there any form of migration or backup that is possible to make this a quick process?

Thank you all!

 

[ShackDaddy]

I would use ShadowProtect to do that. The retail Server edition would allow you to back up the server and then restore it to a new drive by booting to the ShadowProtect Recovery CD and then doing the restore to the new drive. That's how I'd play it.

You can download a 30-day trial of ShadowProtect to actually make the image before purchasing, but you have to have purchased the software to be able to download the Recovery CD .iso file.


Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net

 

[sothardw]

Hey Shack,

Thanks for the info. We have actually been looking into Shadow Protect for other applications. Really have been holding off until the new update comes out that allows backup at the folder level and not the whole drive level. That should be out now but I haven't had time to test with the possible new release.

We are really looking for a safe process to do the HDD swap without having to use any third party software or hardware. We would like to just use any possible tools native to SBS 2k8.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

 

[ShackDaddy]

Actually, if you do a full SBS 2008 backup to an external HD, you can then swap the disks and then boot the disk with the SBS 2008 DVD and do a full restore of your primary drive from the backup. SBS 2008 has pretty much the same restore capabilities as Vista: Complete PC Restore. I've done it a couple of times and am not sure why I didn't think of it.

If you boot from the DVD and then go into recovery mode, you'll see the option.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net