Win2k Server -- New Hard Drive --- Do not Want to Reinstall

[Atreyu 0]

I will be getting two new hard drives tomorrow, one for each of my servers.

 

I am running my own domain along with exchange, sql, antivirus, and other servers. Everything is configured very well and my whole setup here is working flawlessly. If I can avoid reinstalling and configuring everything I would like to. Basically, I want to know how I could go about mirroring, or imaging the existing drives, then writing the new hard drives with info. I can't seem to find any imaging software that works with NT server, so I'm about to scratch that idea..

 

But, here's another thought I had: put a new hard drive in one of the machines... then mirror the original disk. Take the original disk out as if it failed, and let the new drive take over. Will this work? If so, what's the process I need to go through to do it. If not, does anybody have an idea as to how I can go about installing a new drive, copying the old drive onto it such that I don't have to reinstall and reconfigure my setup.

 

Thanx a ton!

[CUViper 0]

Norton Ghost will do the drive image/resore with NT...

 

I like your idea of using the mirroring though, BUT.... I think the drives have to be the same size (can anyone confirm this please?). If that's the case, you would have to partition the drives to the same size, which is probably not what you want to happen...

[Atreyu 0]

u sure norton ghost works with server? i'm not sure it does. as a matter of fact, i don't think it does. i'll look into it more..

[EM 0]

I have used Powerquest's Drive Image to do Linux partitions so I can't imagine that it wouldn't do what you need to do.

 

I am assuming that you are using NTFS partitions?

 

Ed

[Atreyu 0]

oh yes. ntfs everything

I've tried Drive Image from PowerQuest. It doesn't work on Windows SERVER.

 

I've tried pretty much every drive imaging software out there that I know of... none support Windows SERVER. That's why I started thinking of other ways.. like the mirroring idea.

 

Who knows. Maybe I'll end up just starting from scratch, one machine at a time. Darn that will be a pain in the butt tho.

[EM 0]

My drive image disks are a dos bootup disk and then it loads the program from dos. I guess I don't see how SERVER is any different than anything else at that point. Is the NTFS of Server different than NT4 or Win2k Pro?

 

Ed

[Atreyu 0]

oh yes..there's plenty of differences, the primary being the number of services that run. workstations like nt4 wks and win2k pro use what the nt4 server and win2k servers give them.

 

i think the reason that driveimage doesn't work for server though is because powerquest doesn't want it to. i think they programmed in there, "hey if this operating system is Windows Server, then give the guy an error message and quit setup". they may have done this because they dont want to be liable for screwing up a server when the software was written for the workstation machines.

 

it even states on the powerquest web page that it is not compatible with server.

 

the hunt continues...

[clutch 1]

Yeah, I haven't seen any imaging software that will work with NT/2K server. I can imagine that there isn't a high demand for it, plus servers tend to be more mission critical, and you can get the occasional image failure that could ruin your day. I think the main reason though would be trying to support all the software RAID configs in the server version of NT. I know that partition magic from powerquest will not work in NT Server, but ServerMagic (from powerquest) works just fine.

[trasher 0]

Doesn't Powerquest still carry Server Magic? their overpriced server image solution...

[Atreyu 0]

Check this out...

 

 

 

http://www.snapback.com

 

 

I downloaded it and am gonna try it tomorrow. Looks kewl, and like it might work.