changedsoul
Member
Im looking for some advise. I work for a small company that runs SBS2008 as a server for user authentication and file shares and that is it.
I preformed a backup of the entire system to allow for a bare metal recovery in the case the server crash and burned. I was trying to test the recovery by restoring to a VirtualBox VM. Obviously the hardware is different, and after the restore, the VM continued to Blue Screen and reboot. So Im asking for advice on how I can test the backup, or ways to test recovery so I know if our server does die I can be back up in a short about of time.
Purchasing third party software is out of the question here. I know all about explaining to the powers that be, that the cost of being down for a length of time is far greater than the cost of a third party software to allow backup and recovery to different hardware. Still being approved to purchase software is denied.
So I am left with the tools at hand, The SBS2008 Disk, The Backup Made from inside SBS2008, and any free tools on the net. Can someone help me work through this so I can be sure I can recover my data? Putting files back where they were is easy enough for me, but Im talking about restoring all the users profiles, Active Directory, Group Policy, etc. If I cannot restore this to different hardware ( and this might be the case if the server hardware dies and wee need a new server) than I need to be able to reload all our settings. Help with this would be greatly appreciated. This is a new field for me and Im doing the best I can, but in the event of a system failure, Im afraid I am in the dark and I would rather not be.
I preformed a backup of the entire system to allow for a bare metal recovery in the case the server crash and burned. I was trying to test the recovery by restoring to a VirtualBox VM. Obviously the hardware is different, and after the restore, the VM continued to Blue Screen and reboot. So Im asking for advice on how I can test the backup, or ways to test recovery so I know if our server does die I can be back up in a short about of time.
Purchasing third party software is out of the question here. I know all about explaining to the powers that be, that the cost of being down for a length of time is far greater than the cost of a third party software to allow backup and recovery to different hardware. Still being approved to purchase software is denied.
So I am left with the tools at hand, The SBS2008 Disk, The Backup Made from inside SBS2008, and any free tools on the net. Can someone help me work through this so I can be sure I can recover my data? Putting files back where they were is easy enough for me, but Im talking about restoring all the users profiles, Active Directory, Group Policy, etc. If I cannot restore this to different hardware ( and this might be the case if the server hardware dies and wee need a new server) than I need to be able to reload all our settings. Help with this would be greatly appreciated. This is a new field for me and Im doing the best I can, but in the event of a system failure, Im afraid I am in the dark and I would rather not be.
