Recover SBS2008 1

[snotty54]

Dear All:

Haven't posted on here in a while, everything had been running smoothly. Had a bit of bad luck and I've had a server hardware crash. I do have an SBS2008 backup so should be able to recover. I purchased new hardware and built a new server but prob with mb will have to exchange for new one (long story). I've taken one of my older machines that is powerful enough to run SBS2008, at least for the short term, and configured it with 4 new 500gb disks (same size as original server) and set up Raid 5 exactly the way I had it on old server. I booted from the SBS2008 install disk, then chose "repair" and hooked up the external drive usb connected back up to the machine, and run through the recover procedure, but have been getting the classic "THE DISK THAT IS SET AS ACTIVE IN BIOS IS TOO SMALL TO RECOVER THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM DISK. REPLACE THE DISK WITH A LARGER ONE AND RETRY THE RESTORE OPERATION (0x80042407). Since the RAID 5 is showing setup properly on the boot, and all 4 disks show in the RAID config utility, and the bios of the computer, my assumption was an "inf" file was missing for the raid array, which apparently the recover back up can't "see". I've tried the original mb disk, then newer "inf" files from the mb manufacturer's web site, and tried just about every "inf" file I could, no luck. I went in to bios and set the raid 5 array as the first boot option, no difference.

Any one have a suggestion on how I can recover my world?

Thanks in advance,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

Rather than assuming that your RAID isn't being recognized, I would also use DiskPart or another tool to make sure that the RAID array is marked as ACTIVE like the error says. If it's not being marked as active, it may not be allowable as the restore target.

For how to use DiskPart

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

http://www.thpc.info/how/make_active.html

To get access to DiskPart, you could boot to an SBS 2008 DVD and go into Recovery Console to the command-line. That should give you access to the DiskPart tool.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/set-active-partition-vista-xp/

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

Thanks for the info. As per your suggestion I managed to get DiskPart going from the SBS2008 install dvd and saw the raid drive, and the backup drive (attached via usb). I selected the raid drive as the active drive, rebooted and went through recovery procedure once again, and have gotten a new error now: "Element not found. (0x80070490)" Just to be clear, this is the error message when I've gotten all the way through the recovery menus to the final "finish" tab to restore.

Have you any idea what that might mean and where to go from here?

Thanks in advance,

Scott

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

I searched on "element not found" and found a thread saying if the usb hdd backup drive holding the restore backup is connected during boot up through post, it'll become the "active" drive and bring up that error. I unhooked the drive, booted up through the sbs 2008 install dvd, then once the complete restore choice was selected, I plugged in the back up drive, and then received the boot drive too small error again. Backed out to the command prompt, went through the diskpart applet again, selected the raid array as the active, and went back through to restore, still getting the original error "THE DISK THAT IS SET AS ACTIVE IN BIOS IS TOO SMALL TO RECOVER THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM DISK. REPLACE THE DISK WITH A LARGER ONE AND RETRY THE RESTORE OPERATION (0x80042407)."

Everything I've read on the SBS 2008 built in back up was that it was bullet proof but I'm having nothing but one prob after another trying to get my server back up.

Any further suggestions much appreciated,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

You might find and install RecoverAssist (same people that make BackupAssist). They basically built their tool to be a wrapper around the native backup application, but it has more options and resolves problems that the native backup app is known to have during restores.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

Thanks for the referral. I viewed the site then gave their support number in the US a call. Very helpful support guy, and without having previously backed up using their "backupassist" software, their recovery assist software can't work. Following that, he offered some useful advice about using wbaadmin from a windows os computer to check the external backup to find out what type of backup it is. If it isn't bare metal restore then I may have to install sbs2008 on the new machine and do a restore that way. If the backup does have the bare metal capability, then I'll go back and retry the Raid drivers, diskpart in case I just didn't follow the correct order. I don't remember what switches I used for the backup routine. Learning a lot.....

I'll come back with whatevr I find.

Thanks

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

Glad to hear that their tech was helpful. That company is pretty great. Let us know how things go.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

Update:

Plugging the usb external backup into one of my win 7 clients, and using wbadmin with the "get versions" switch shows that the backup is bare metal restore.

Backup time: 5/10./2O13 11:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Backup Drive 1(\\?\Uolume{8d9?0c68—ef7F—lld
—a565—485b39ef902e))
Uersion identifier: 05/11/2013—04:00
Can recover: Uolume(s), File(s). Bare Metal Recovery
Snapshot ID: {bd299ed9—581e—4eOc—954b—4bc?af588ce?)


At this point I'm going to assume that I just haven't done all the individual actions in the right order to make the restore see the Raid 5 array and recover. 1)keep usb external backup unplugged until after choosing the complete restore option so recover routine doesn't see it as the "active" drive; 2)use Diskpart to insure the Raid 5 array is the "active" drive; 3) install the raid.inf driver for the motherboard.

If you think of anything else I can try....please run it by me.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[snotty54]

Dear All/Anyone:

Unsuccessful in restoring sbs2008 so far. I've:
1) confirmed through wbadmin that the backup can restore volumes, files, or bare metal restore
2) utilized diskpart to make the raid5 array active (have rebooted after this and tried it without out rebooting). Also checked partition but there are no partitions on this new, 4 500gb disk Raid5 array, so nothing to select.
3) installed the .inf file that came on the original install disc for the mb, and also the latest .inf from the mb site for win 8 (64)(Updated the bios for the mb prior to any of these procedures)
4) having tried to restore 15-20 times carefully going through the procedure, and always coming up with the error that the active drive is too small. I also tried making the Raid5 array the 1st boot drive but then it wouldn't boot from the sbs2008 install disk. The Raid5 array is the 1st active drive in the bios

Can anyone tell me if the wbadmin procedure confirms, by acknowledging there is a back up, and that it can restore volumes, files or bare metal restore, that it is good?

I can't think of what else I can try with this machine. I'm thinking of taking the 4 new 500gb hard drives out of this machine that form the Raid5 array, and sticking them in the former server that crashed, hoping that it was a hard drive crash, and perhaps the bare metal restore will work from the original machine, if it was the hard drive(s) that crashed.

Any thoughts on what else I can try with this machine appreciated. Extensive searching online has only produced the same restore/recovery procedures I've been using, I have not found a thread suggesting trying anything else at this point.

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

Scott, try this: instead of setting up RAID5, just set up RAID 0, a big stripe set. That will make the underlying disk space larger. Then create one big logical drive and attempt your restore on that.

One thing I've run into is that sometimes you can take identically sized drives and try to restore to them, but due to manufacturing differences, the new drive(s) aren't actually quite as big, and it leads to this problem. Trying it with RAID 0 would confirm whether this is what's happening, and if you are willing to run without RAID5 for a little while, at least you'd be up and running (and able to take additional backups).

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

That was it. I reset the raid array to "0" and it changed in size from 1.3tb to 1.83tb and the backup restored. It's just come up after 3 hours of restoring (data on 2nd volume took awhile). Now I'm reconfiguring some of the hardware but things are looking good. Thanks so much for coming back to me on this. I've learned quite a bit in this exercise. I don't care which Raid setup I have now, I plan to move on to WinServ2012 and I currently have a copy running on a separate network in test and trying to figure out how to make it work. I guess it'll still be awhile before they have the tools ready to migrate from sbs2008//exchange2007 to winser2012 and exchange2013 but when they do I hope to be ready for the move.

While typing this update/thank you I've also been going through minor issues to get the server all the way back up, and it specifies the windows server has to be reactivated. I tried doing it online and by telephone and both attempts resulted in failure. The online method said the product key I was typing in is already in use, duh! The telephone method gives you a code to type in over the phone and when I did, it asked me how many computers I was using on this license and I said 3 (1 server, 2 clients, I have a 5 client license) and it came back and said I needed to buy more licenses for my "Vista" os!

It says its going to automatic activation in 3 days, I hope that means I just leave it alone, or does it mean it'll go down if I don't do something?

Endlessly needy,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

There are real humans that you can talk to in the licensing dept that you can explain the situation to. Basically since the underlying hardware for your server has changed, it doesn't see it as a license being installed on the same server, and I think you have to get human sign-off on that, not automated. Not sure what the number to call would be, but I think that the number they give you for telephone licensing may also include a "dial 0 for human" type option.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Thanks Dave. I was able to get a human and got it sorted. The Server is running and everything is back up.

Thanks again,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

The migration from SBS 2008 to Windows 2012 with Exchange 2013 isn't that scary. It will never be wizarded, and there is no SBS 2013, but the migration is doable.

Microsoft is encouraging people to go with Office 365, so your migration might be easier if you were willing to install Windows 2012 Essentials and migrate your user accounts to that along with your file data, and migrate your mail up to the cloud. For so few mailboxes like you have, it might be less costly (both time and money) to just go cloud for mail.

If that's something you'd want help with, I can help you with that offline like we've done before.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

That is good to know about the migration to WinServ2012/Exch2013. There seems to be lots of "speculation" floating about on that issue.

Your assessment with Office 365 is the same conclusion I'd come to when they first came out with it. Unfortunately, the industry I work in is considered a "financial provider" within the compliance framework I operate in, and the compliance structure is very complicated and an ever changing goal post. For that reason, the "on premise cloud" is the only structure I feel comfortable with, as having my data in another jurisdiction would add "uncertainty" to being in compliance.

At this point in time, I've got the eval copy of WinServ2012 and Exch2013 on my new server running, on a separate subnet, and I'm going to keep playing with it until I feel comfortable working in it. Meanwhile, thanks to you, I've got a functioning sbs2008 server back up, although it has many errors and problems. I'm going to begin working through them one at time and if I crash the system, at least I know I can restore it now. Once I have the sbs2008 box completely healthy again, I'll be looking at the migration to the new system. That is something I'd probably want help with, and I would pm you on that.

As I work through the errors on sbs2008, I'll probably be coming back for some help, but not before I've googled it to death first, trying to get it fixed myself. My first problem? SBS is not seeing the usb external hard drives for backup, so backup is not functioning at the moment. Hello server world!

Best,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

For the backup issue (mainly in the context of the Dell RD1000 backup devices), I believe in the past I've had to configure backup to be done on a physical drive and then edited the registry to change the target drive letter for the backup. This article is for SBS 2003, but I think it may work for 2008 as well.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925097/en-us

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Hi Dave:

Thanks for that tip. It didn't seem to apply to my situation. I have the usb external drive connected to the server but have to reboot server for it to see the drive. If I unplug it, and plug it back in, SBS2008 will not see it in "computer" at all. Now that I've rebooted server, it can see the drive in Computer (windows explorer) but when I try to configure backup, it does not see any suitable usb external drives so does not initiate. I know this is a common problem but haven't had time to run it down. I spent last 2 days fixing two other errors with server, this one is next. If you have any other ideas for me to try, please let me know.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[snotty54]

Backup sorted.

Kept trying different scenarios, but windows could see the drive, sbsbackup could not. After reviewing my options of doing several changes in the registry, and other suggested changes, I found a thread where they were contributing info about brands and models of drives that would not work with SBS backup, and my 1.5TB Seagate was not on the list but I thought this was the easiest thing to try next, as there were a lot of Seagate drives on there. If it failed, on to the registry. I have a $15 coolmax external box, and spare new 500gb Seagate drive so I swapped the 500gb drive for the 1.5tb Seagate and "wa-la", backup saw it. I've got 3 successful backup passes so far, so all working good. I'm going to try and ease my original 500gb backup (the one that saved the day!) into the system as backup #2 over the weekend.

Next up is WSUS. It has never worked. I've run through all the repair procedures I've found on MS sites, and although there are 3 or 4 different places, most of the repair procedures are the same, and that hasn't worked yet. I'm in the process of running the "clean the Server" WSUS wizard to get rid of the all the unused or superseded updates, once that completes (been running almost 12 hours now) I'll go back at it.

Thanks for the help so far,

Scott

 

[ShackDaddy]

Thanks for the update. You are really persistent!

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[snotty54]

Thanks for the compliment Dave. I assume I'm doing what anyone who has gotten into IT has to do, keep at it until there is a solution.

I caught a break and a buddy is coming down next week, so my replacement mb is coming. I'm got my new server in test with winserv2012 and Exchange2013 utilizing a separate subnet so as not to mess up my production server. I've been looking around for a setup guide, I'd really like to wring out the new server/exchange before I migrate over. I'm wondering if I can utilize a different domain and email set up without messing up my production side? Installing WinSer2012 and Exchange 2013 seemed relatively simple, but then you have to start turning things on...

Thanks,

Scott