We supplied a number of new machines into a new client when we did a new SBS 2008 install not too long ago.
One of the machine’s hard disks was causing some flaky behaviour and throwing Disk errors in the Event Logs.
We installed ShadowProtect 4.0.1 Desktop edition on the machine yesterday and set up a scheduled backup to run every hour to a network share.
When we arrived this morning we ran a final Incremental backup prior to shutting down the system. We swapped out the bad drive for a new one and then booted off of our ShadowProtect IT Edition’s USB flash drive.
Once we created the necessary disk signature, rebooted, we were able to restore the 100MB partition that Windows 7 creates and then the actual system partition.
There was some initial concern because that 100MB partition normally does not have a drive letter associated with it plus the restore process flagged a bad BCD Database restore in red.
Once we ran through the actual system drive’s restore process there was a note in the Details pane that showed that the BCD Database was edited and successfully corrected.
We then closed ShadowProtect IT Edition and the system rebooted. It complained about not being shut down properly, but Windows 7 Ultimate did indeed boot up without a hiccup.
A quick check in Disk Manager showed that 100MB partition as not having a drive letter and everything was good to go!
Total time to swap out a bad drive and restore the system on an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 on an Intel DQ45EK Mini-ITX motherboard with a 320GB 7200 RPM Momentus was about an hour and 10 minutes. A full OS install, driver install, updates, and application install would have been about 3-4 hours.
Note that ShadowProtect must be installed and configured on a Backup Schedule in order to have access to creating Incremental backups. A manual backup (Backup Once) will not allow for any incremental backups.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
2 comments:
Wouldn't the boot repair tool in the SP restore environment fix this up? I could be wrong, but the system could probably boot WITHOUT the 100MB partition as long as you repair it?
Justin,
That 100MB is marked System, Active, and Primary Partition.
Because it is Active, Windows drops some files on it that are required if BitLocker is encrypting the actual OS partition.
We prefer to restore the original configuration as best as we can to limit any risks.
Philip
Post a Comment