Author Topic: Hard Disk Imaging App for Windows Server (Read 1766 times)

sully! · « **on:** March 11, 2005, 03:21:12 PM »

What I'm looking for is something like Ghost/Drive Image that will run on a Windows 2000/2003 server, but the Ghost Solutions Suite seems to be overkill for what I need.

From what I can tell, regular Ghost will not run on a server OS, but I've also seen some reports of people backing up their domain controllers with it. I speculate that they may be doing this over a network connection.

However, that is not the case here. I need it to run natively on the server and perform the backup on that machine, just as Ghost 9.0 does on desktops.

Any suggestions?

Thanks guys!

TekieB · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2005, 03:29:54 PM »

Doesn't ghost look at the raw hard drive? Also, server 2k3 is xp based, so I don't see why it woudln't run on it. Have you tried it?

http://www.altiris.com/products/server/

we use some of their stuff at school, I know it can do imaging

sully! · « **Reply #2 on:** March 11, 2005, 04:48:48 PM »

Yes it does just look at the bits on the disk, but not all programs will allow themselves to run on a server OS. Norton Anti-Virus for example will see that is a server OS and refuse to install, so you have to get the Corporate Edition.

I have not had a chance to try yet, but it's on my list of things to do this weekend, just thought someone might have some experience with this.

sully! · « **Reply #3 on:** March 17, 2005, 02:52:41 PM »

*bump*

Nimby · « **Reply #4 on:** March 17, 2005, 03:27:49 PM »

if you want something REALLY quick and dirty, you can use "dd" on linux. it will do a BIT BY BIT copy of the target hard drive, and place it on the slave hard drive ... good for making copies of the same HD. (i.e in a cyber cafe setting where you have 10 of the EXACT same system ) install once, copy 9 times.

sully! · « **Reply #5 on:** March 17, 2005, 08:33:22 PM »

Ok, so you have a better idea of the situation...

There is a server that has two identical 36GB SCSI drives on a Windows 2003 server (also the DC for the domain). These drives are currently configured as just two standalone drives (c: and d:).

What I would like to do is move all the data from d: onto c: and then configure the drives in RAID-1 for redundancy.

However, as this is critical data, I need to back it up before I do anything so I can always revert just in case something goes wrong. There is currently no backup device on this server either (no tape drive) and the company doesn't want to pay for an external hard drive (they're a non-profit and money is tight).

In the end, I want to have the two drives mirrored, and a way I can go in there on a regular basis and image the array to take a backup offsite. So a secondary requirement to this is that the imaging program has to work across a RAID configuration.

Does this change anyone's thoughts?

TekieB · « **Reply #6 on:** March 17, 2005, 08:38:27 PM »

i'd say dd for backup to any various drive/partition (I know you have something lying arround) then screw with the drives all you want, reformat/raid then reload all the data back on the the orig partition (the DD works in reverse too)

how much data is on the drive?

Nimby · « **Reply #7 on:** March 17, 2005, 09:23:51 PM »

Tekie: DD will NOT work in that case. by doing raid 1 you're changing the drive geomentry slightly, thus making DD unable to copy the data back.

Sully: in that case, I'd recommend you donate dsome sort of HD, and an enclosure to do the job, or at least, back it up to something else. Trying to copy the data over, than "raid 1'ing them prolyl won't work. If I remember correctly, raid 1 sets superblocks at places in the drive based on geometry ...simply copying the data from one drive to another doesn't allow raid one to set that up properly, . Aslo, a "clean format" of a raid 1 drive is part of my list of things to do whenever I set up araid one system.

sully! · « **Reply #8 on:** March 18, 2005, 01:34:27 AM »

Yeah tekie, as I said the data on these drives are critical, ie, they are all the files this non-profit needs to run their business. Reformatting and blowing everything away is a last resort, not a first choice. Because if you do that, then you also have to re-setup all of the software and shares on the server and remap each workstation to those shares because of different SID's assigned to the server, resetup all the accounts and groups in AD, setup DNS zones, etc. etc. They did not budget paying for all that labor (roughly a 16-hour job). This can all be accomplished in about 4-6 hours if we can just treat this like we could a workstation.

Nimby: The scenario I described will work, we just want to be able to make sure we have the data backed up somewhere first before we try anything in case something goes wrong. It would essentially be like adding a second drive later in the servers life and building up the mirror on the new drive. First we move the data off d:, format d:, and then set it as a mirrored volume in Disk Manager. I guess I didn't mention there is not a hardware RAID controller in this, it will be pure software RAID.

So bottom line is: Required: Image a drive on a server running Windows Server 2003. Optional: Ability to perform image in the future across a RAID 1 array.

Has anyone used or played around with the Ghost Solution Suite? Thoughts? Comments? Never heard of the beast....

Nimby · « **Reply #9 on:** March 19, 2005, 10:36:47 PM »

Ghost enterprise/corperate edition is a evil beast ... you'd have to setup a seperate server to act as a "Ghost Server" and then the disk images would be dumped accross a network to it.

Ghost for the "home user" tho is a pretty painless process ... I'd recommend you do that at first, just to get a baseline image.
One thing tho, if possible, test the image to make SURE you can restore it. Also, muck around with the software as you CAN screw up your active disk with the program.

just my $.02

Author Topic: Hard Disk Imaging App for Windows Server (Read 1766 times)

TekieB

TekieB