Troubleshooting ShadowProtect Backup Failure 503 Fatal I/O Error

We have one SBS 2008 riding on a cluster that has started to fail its full backups but only at certain times.

•   StorageCraft KB: 503 Fatal I/O error (-31 A device attached to the system is not functioning).

The KB indicates that the problem is resident on the source if the error falls on a read or on the destination if on a write.

In this case our failure was on a write so we started to focus in on the destination.

For this cluster setup we have the backups stream across the wire to the standalone DC on an HP MicroServer that was also protected by ShadowProtect.

We looked into network connectivity as well as for disk I/O errors in the Event Logs with no results.

The last place to look was in the ShadowProtect setup on the DC itself.

Sure enough, the DC was set to run an incremental close to the same time the one backup on the SBS VM was failing.

We changed the standalone DC backup schedule to run one incremental at night to avoid any further conflicts with the VM backups that were streaming to it.

We now had a successful backup set on the SBS VM.

Philip Elder
Microsoft MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Cause For Pause: Accounting Firm Possibly Done In Due to Technician Error and Cryptolocker (reddit)

This article came across one of the lists I am a part of and really brought home our own experiences back when Backup Exec and Symantec spent three days working with us to recover a backup that in the end proved to be unrecoverable.

In the above case we were fortunate to have other methods in place to protect the data but we did end up losing the domain and 24 of a partner's files out of 650GB of data (the failure was progressive - garbage in garbage out).

• reddit: TL;DR - Accounting firm gets Cryptolocker Virus. Tech wipes the server to clean it because he has Carbonite backups. He can't remember password to the privately managed encryption key file and can't download the firms backup. Everything lost. : talesfromtechsupport

The BUE fail taught us to advocate strongly for us to be the ones to rotate the backups (the person responsible in the above case failed to rotate the two magazines) and to do a quarterly _full_ bare metal or hypervisor restore of the backup.

It also drove us to find a different backup and restore method that gave us portability for the backed up server along with good recoverability. We came across and have been running with StorageCraft's ShadowProtect product ever since. Since then we have had some spectacular recoveries completed as a result of ShadowProtect and the skills learned via Jeff Middleton's SwingIT migration methods.

One of the other lessons we learned early in our IT careers and is exemplified in the above article is the thoroughness with which we keep our client's audit notes. We document absolutely _everything_ about their network setups. They get any updated versions after they have been updated. One can never be too sure!

A full bare metal/hypervisor restored backup is the ONLY known good backup. Period. Full Stop.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Creating a Fixed VHD in Windows 7 and a ShadowProtect P2V

We have a VHD creation process running in the Windows 7 Disk Management console:

The above VHD is being created on a network share hosted by one of our Hyper-V servers (2008 R2). It will be a 160GB fixed VHD that will host the Windows 7 machine’s OS once ShadowProtect is finished.

While that process is running ShadowProtect is taking an image of the Windows 7 machine as it will be P2Vd onto the above Hyper-V host.

This image is running to a 2008 R2 file server.

The machine is a Core i7-875K with a pair of 80GB Intel X25-M SSDs running in RAID 0 and is soon to be retired.

We will use our P2V Hyper-V Integration Services (previous blog post) step to get rid of the RAID signature and enable IS in the OS. Then, we will use our Hardware Independent Restore (previous blog post) steps to clean out any left-over devices from the physical machine.

We find out of all products available to us, including Microsoft’s own Disk2VHD too, that ShadowProtect gives us the most reliable method of moving a physical machine into a virtual setting or taking a VM and restoring it to hardware.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Our Largest Disaster Recovery Navigated Successfully To Date

This was posted to the Spiceworks forum here: Announcing the Master of Data Disaster Contest!

One of the largest catastrophic failures that we successfully navigated took out a client's SBS 2003 R2 Premium server. There were a number of factors involved in this failure including heat (server closet did not have active cooling and the landlord did not have the HVAC set up correctly so heat was pumped in from above the false ceiling during the winter months), a SATA RAID array having failing members, and eventually the RAID Controller and disks doing a full-stop.

It took a week using various SwingIT methods (Jeff Middleton's SBS Migration methodologies) to recover their SBS to a lab server in our shop, SwingIT recover the AD/Content to a new server, forklift the Exchange databases, and drop the new server back into their office. ShadowProtect was an important part of this recovery.

After that week the _only_ user related problem we had after dropping the new server in and bringing it online (it used the previous server's name) was two users that called because they could not log on. While connected to the backup DC they had changed their password. Since the recovered server was using an AD that was a week old they had to use their previous password to log on. As noted in one of the linked posts we did end up needing to rebuild the forklifted Exchange 2003 databases.

The first heart stopping, cold hands inducing, and sinking stomach moment:

• http://bit.ly/KQPOAj (SBS, ShadowProtect, and an Event ID 55 NTFS Error ...)

The second heart stopping, cold hands inducing, and sinking stomach moment where server death was now known to be immanent:

• http://bit.ly/XQMXAx (Images No Good ... Catastrophic SBS Failure ... Down What?!?)

Now, becoming less and less relevant but having a second DC on an SBS STD network can be a killer when recovering:

• http://bit.ly/KJ8lOE

SBS - Exchange Information Store is Corrupt? Recreating the Store

• http://bit.ly/14padWb
• Once we were down the line from point of recovery we still had issues with the Exchange databases we forklifted into place. This post outlines all of the steps to get content out of Exchange, create a new database set, and merge it back in. Exchange 2003.

SBS & ShadowProtect - Some Hardware Independent Restore considerations

• http://bit.ly/Xo0akx
• This post is relevant for any full bare metal or hypervisor restore of a server.

SBS Disaster Recovery - Finished

• http://bit.ly/10a5Kd9

As noted in the Event ID 55 NTFS post, previous to this recovery BackupExec had totally failed us in a failure at this client site (heat and IDE/SATA are a killer combination). After three days on the phone with Symantec support we cut loose and rebuilt the domain and data from scratch managing to pull their entire data set (short 24 files belonging to one partner) back together. That's when we went looking for something better and came to ShadowProtect by StorageCraft.

Since this last major recovery we have been fortunate that we have not had any major failures to deal with.

And, just this week our client with the many major failures has moved to a new business condo they purchased. We will now have a proper climate controlled server room for their IT solution to live in. No more heat problems! W00t!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Western Digital USB Drives Use A Proprietary Drive PCB for USB

This comes via the SBS2K Yahoo Group.

• Spiceworks Community: WD 500gb my passport Help!!

Apparently, Western Digital in their great wisdom has decided to mass produce a hard drive controller with only one interface on it: USB.

And:

As a rule we have been using the StarTech 4 bay SuperSpeed drive dock with bare drives for our backup rotations that we run.

For clients that have been running their own backup rotations we have been recommending the WD non-Green USB drives as we have had pretty good success with them. The same goes for the Seagate USB drives that are not “Green” in nature.

The one thing we have noticed with the manufacturer built USB drives is that there is a tendency to use 5400 RPM drives. And now, perhaps we are limited in how we can access a drive if something goes wrong with the controller.

Our preference for bare backup drives are:

1. Seagate Enterprise Storage (ES or Constellation) series SATA
2. Western Digital Black Label (non-Advanced Format for VHD/Backup VHD)

Both drives are 7200 RPM with better firmware than the retail/consumer drives. So, they will perform better and last longer due to ongoing handling during rotations.

We may request that in the future clients only purchase a certain drive and USB enclosure for their backups so that we have some control over what drives are used for backups.

As usual, it is Buyer Beware.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

StorageCraft IT Edition: Network Backup at AES128bit Performance

This is _neat_ to see:

This is a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 machine being backed up across the wire (Gigabit) to a Windows Server 2008 R2 file server using ShadowProtect IT Edition (v4.x.x).

We used AES 128bit encryption with a pass phrase for this particular backup.

• Intel Core i7-875K
• Intel DP55KG (BIOS 3878)
• 4GB Kingston ValueRAM

When at all possible it is our preference to run our backup and restore to a network location as USB 2 is just _too_ slow.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V How To: Convert VHD to VHDX

We stood up a VM on a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V server and are looking to test it on a newly installed Windows Server 2012 Beta Hyper-V.

First test, convert the VHD to VHDX:

1. In Hyper-V Manager on 2012 click Edit Disk
• 
2. Read then click Next on the Before You Begin window.
3. Click the Browse button and locate the VHD to be converted
• We put the VHD into the default storage location we set up on this server.
• 
• Note the caveat:
• 
4. In the Choose Action window click the Convert radio button and click Next.
5. In the Convert Virtual Hard Disk window choose the format which is VHDX in this case.
• 
6. Choose between Fixed or Dynamically expanding.
• 
7. Select the name and location.
• 
8. If Next is clicked then a summary screen will be presented along with the Finish button.
9. Click Finish.
10. The Editing process will start.
1. 
11. Check the folder the original VHD and the exported VHDX are in and:
• 
• We can see the progress being made. . .
• 
• On this particular system it looks as though we are seeing about 20GB of conversion over about 20 minutes.
• Intel Xeon X3350, 8GB ECC, Intel RAID, 3x Seagate ES in RAID 5.
• NOTE: There must be enough storage available for the exported VHDX!
• If storage is shared then it is doubly important that the full capacity of the dynamically expanding VHDX be taken into consideration.

We had some trouble running the ShadowProtect restore in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. The best recovery rate we could get was about 1.5MB/Second.

But, on Server 2008 R2 SP1 with all of the recent hotfixes we were able to get 21MB/Second across a Gigabit LAN using a single vCPU and 1GB of fixed RAM for the being restored VM. ShadowProtect version was 4.2.5 or thereabouts (most recent edition).

Check out the following blog for tips on avoiding BSODs in a P2V situation:

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Hyper-V Restore Tips using Hardware Independent Restore Blog Post

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.

Windows Live Writer

ShadowProtect 4.0.1–Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Restore Good To Go

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.

Windows Live Writer

ShadowProtect – Garbage In = Garbage Out

The situation we are in is not the fault of ShadowProtect specifically, but one that we have encountered before where the system’s disks were starting to fail and the backup was image based. Thus, any image backup software can be found to have bad data within the image.

We are in the process of finalizing an SBS 2008 server setup for a new client on-site. Their “server” system was experiencing spontaneous reboots with Check Disk running on each start up. This morning the system refused to come back up.

We had set up a ShadowProtect backup on that machine to help protect the data that was on it.

However, as the above screenshot of a BeyondCompare data copy out of the mounted ShadowProtect image shows us, if the data going in is bad the data coming out will be bad.

We experienced a situation like this at an unprecedented level a few years ago where a client’s very large RAID 5 array decided to start dropping sectors on the drives. We ended up recovering that SBS domain using the Swing method and the data through a combination of backup recoveries across the two servers at that site.

In this case we have no other fallback methods other than some of the users may have a copy of the corrupted files on the own systems since the central “server” has been behaving quite flaky for a while now.

So, we will be mounting the ShadowProtect backups that have been running on the flaky system for a couple of weeks now to see if we can find any of the now corrupted files that still may be in good shape.

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.

Windows Live Writer

Recovering Server 2003 with Dynamic Disks via ShadowProtect

One of our non-profit clients needed to replace an aging server with new hardware. Since their licensing covered moving the OS to another box, and the legacy app on that box would not run on Server 2008, we used ShadowProtect to move the OS to new hardware.

Unfortunately, virtualizing the legacy setup was not an option or we would have taken that approach.

The source server was set up with a pair of dynamic disks that were mirrored via an OS software RAID.

When recovering a server that uses a set of Dynamic disks for an OS based software RAID, there is an extra step to the image recovery process.

If the server is a member server, as was the case for us, make sure to reset the local admin password on the server and have that change reflected in the SP image before the image is used for a restore.

Once the SP image has been placed on the new drives, or in our case on a new server, we needed to boot to the Windows Server 2003 CD and log onto the recovery console.

At the recovery console we needed to run the following commands:

1. fixboot c: [Enter]
2. fixmbr [Enter]

This will reset the dynamic disks to basic and allow the OS to boot.

Remember to follow the required post Hardware Independent Restore steps (previous blog post) if moving the OS to new hardware as we were doing here.

StorageCraft’s white paper on dynamic disks:

• StorageCraft: Dynamic Disk – Restore from a ShadowProtect Image.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

BCDEdit Batch File To Reset BCD Prior to SP Vista Image

The blog post: First Successful Windows Vista ShadowProtect Restore! No Winload.exe Error!

In order to get Windows Vista to successfully restore from any imaging based backup solution, the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) needs to be reset to a generic setting before creating the image or the OS will not restore properly.

Here are the BCDEdit commands put into a batch file:

• MPECS Inc. SkyDrive: BCDEdit Batch File.

The batch file should be on every Technician’s Thumb Drive!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

First Successful Windows Vista ShadowProtect Restore! No Winload.exe Error!

We have had a very disappointing series of problems with restoring any Windows Vista images made by ShadowProtect.

Many black screens later, there is finally information out there on the “why” the problem happens. The main reason has to do with the way Vista keeps track of the system’s partitioning and OS location.

Apparently the newer versions of Acronis’ imaging product compensates for this new partition management structure in Windows Vista. Unfortunately, the folks at StorageCraft are a little behind the game on this topic.

The last restore attempt we made with a client’s system failed with a WinLoad.exe error.

So, it turns out, after a lot of searching, that one needs to perform a preparatory step on the Windows Vista box before creating the ShadowProtect image:

bcdedit /set {default} device boot
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

Place the above series of commands into a batch file and run the batch file As Administrator on the soon to be imaged Windows Vista box.

LEFT: Before the BCDEdit commands were run.

RIGHT: After the BCDEdit commands were run.

Running the commands on the Vista box strips out the specific partition=C: settings in the BCD in three places and replaces it with boot.

By making those settings generic, we were finally able to restore a box that we were having RAID array problems with once we replaced a faulty disk in the array and recreated the array instead of allowing the rebuild to run for multiple numbers of hours.

Previous posts:

• ShadowProtect restore hiccups ... no restore! Anyone?
• StorageCraft Forums: Vista x64 Recovery: 0xc000000e winload.exe error on boot.
• Solution via Wilders Security Forums: Fix Vista so a Repair is not needed after a restore or clone.

Getting this problem figured out sure took a lot of stress off our work here in the shop and out in the field as we were not confident we could provide a fallback measure with ShadowProtect for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 which uses the same partitioning structures.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

StorageCraft ShadowProtect and SBS 2008 Lock Ups?

It seems that there may be a problem running ShadowProtect version 3.3 on SBS 2008.

We have not loaded SP up on any of our client production SBS 2008 systems at this time as it is untested for us.

Given our experience so far with the built-in SBS 2008 backup, we were comfortable with its recovery abilities at this time.

• StorageCraft Forums: SBS 2008 system freeze during snapshot processing.

There is no conclusive evidence that the problem is with ShadowProtect or within the Win2K8 OS foundation of SBS 2008 as of yet (see page two of the forum).

However, there is a lock-up problem when the ShadowProtect starts up its backup process.

FYI: We have 100% of our SBS 2003 production environments, both SBS and Win2K3 servers, covered by ShadowProtect and it has been virtually flawless in its abilities to facilitate system recoveries.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac!

Windows Live Writer

ShadowProtect Best Practices and Documentation

StorageCraft has a couple of support white papers for us:

• SBS Best Practice Guide for ShadowProtect
• ShadowProtect Server Edition Implementation Checklist (Pre-requisites)

When we first signed up with StorageCraft, there was no real gander through the support white papers. There was an assumption made that a "white paper" in that part of the support site was more towards marketing than actual technical documentation.

That assumption was wrong.

To avoide NTFS Event ID 55 errors, and other problems, it is recommended that we do the following on our SBS installations where ShadowProtect is the principle backup:

• Disable all VSS enabled applications such as the SBS Backup and NTBackup while SP is running.
• Disable any Volume Shadow Copy snapshots being taken of your data volumes. SP will provide that functionality with the multiple daily incrementals.

Have a look through the various white papers contained on StorageCraft's Web site: StorageCraft Documentation.

There are a number of excellent recovery related documents and more.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

ShadowProtect IT Edition 3.1 - Press F6 to load storage drivers?

We are in the process of doing a Hardware Independent Restore of a client's existing SBS ShadowProtect image to one of our own server boxes. We do this so that we can accomplish a Swing Migration with no impact on the production environment.

This is what we see when we first boot into the IT Edition of ShadowProtect:

StorageCraft Recovery Environment (IT Edition)

Since we need the new RAID drivers to see the newly setup RAID arrays on the temp server, we need to load those drivers.

However, one must be paying very close attention to the screen as soon as we hit enter or else we miss this:

Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...

The "Press F6" message flashes by on the screen in less than a couple of seconds. And, when the shop benches are pretty busy, the message can be easily missed and thus no drivers.

After pressing F6, eventually we are greeted with:

Specify additional drivers...

From there, we are good to go.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

StorageCraft ShadowProtect reviewed against other products and wins - PC Mag Editors' Choice Award

We are particularly confident in the StorageCraft ShadowProtect product.

Since we began implementing both the server and desktop editions at client sites, or our Disaster Recovery stress levels have decreased dramatically.

We have already needed to use its abilities to recover client data, client systems, and to utilize the I.T. Edition's Hardware Independent Restore to recover a dead server to new hardware.

On top of that, the folks at StorageCraft are great to get along with and are very helpful on all aspects of purchasing and supporting their products.

StorageCraft's ShadowProtect Desktop Edition is reviewed along side products from competing vendors such as Acronis and Symantec on the PC Mag site: Drive-Imaging: Beyond Backup.

The article specifically reviewing ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1 is here: ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1. Note that PC Mag has given ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1 their Editors' Choice award.

We definitely believe that StorageCraft deserves it! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

ShadowProtect USB Hard Drive Swap Scripts

When we first started configuring ShadowProtect on client servers, we were running into a bit of a problem trying to rotate the USB HDDs.

We would get the following error whenever we tried to stop the drive:

The device Device_Name cannot be stopped because a program is still using it. Close any programs that might be using the device, then try again later.

So, we downloaded Process Explorer and launched a find for "e:" which was the USB drive letter.

We always found that it was the ShadowProtect services holding onto the drive, with the occasional QuickBooks 2008 server TSR holding onto it too.

So, here are a couple of quick batch files to shut down the ShadowProtect services without having to jump in and out of the Server Console or the Services Console (Start-->Run-->Services.msc).

To stop the ShadowProtect services copy and paste the following two lines into a batch file called ShutdownShadowProtect.bat:

• net stop ShadowProtectSvc
• net stop VSNAPVSS

To start the ShadowProtect services copy and paste the following two lines into a batch file called StartupShadowProtect.bat:

• net start ShadowProtectSvc
• net start VSNAPVSS

Voila! A quick click and the drive should be released when we click to stop it and a quick click to start things up again once our drives are rotated.

Remember to always power down the soon to be changed USB HDD BEFORE unplugging the USB cable. And also make sure that the power switch on its replacement is off before connecting the server's USB cable.

Always startup the ShadowProtect console and "Connect" the console back to the services as the ShadowProtect Shield will remain red until this happens.

And one more thing: We keep a folder on the server desktop called Batches to keep all of our server and services batch files and scripts in. We learned the hard way when moving a services shutdown batch file remotely across the desktop that we may activate them accidentally. If that happens, click on the Command window that pops up with the scripted commands and CTRL + C to terminate the batch and restart affected services immediately!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

SBS + ShadowProtect SBS 3.0 = Confidence Going Forward

We started testing StorageCraft's ShadowProtect (blog label search) product a while back.

While we haven't had a chance to blog too much about our experiences with the product, we have been quite pleased with our test results and are now in the process of migrating our client's backup solutions over to StorageCraft's ShadowProtect for both SBS and Windows Server as well as key client desktops.

We had one of those "Eureka" - light goes on - moments not too long ago when we were getting ready to apply Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (download page) at one of our client sites that is protected by ShadowProtect Small Business Server Edition 3.0 (StorageCraft's Site): As we deploy ShadowProtect on our client's sites, our stress levels go down.

How is that?

In the above service pack example, we were working on an ageing server that may not be replaced by Swing Migration (SBSMigration.com) any time soon.

So, if the server choked on the service pack beyond uninstalling and trying to fix things, we were no longer in a position where we would have had to say, "Mr. Client, the server choked on the service pack we applied, we need to restore from the SBS backup and should have the server back up and running by tomorrow morning."

We were now in the position to say, "Mr. Client, the server choked on the service pack. We will need a couple of extra hours to recover it using the new backup system we installed not too long ago. Mr. Client, that backup system just saved us a lot of time and effort!"

Before we are going to run any major updates or install or update a client's Line of Business application, we make sure to run a full backup the night before we are scheduled to arrive. We then run an incremental backup just before beginning our work on the server or business critical desktop system. It only takes a short amount of time.

Having the risks of loosing a server and client data greatly reduced by having an excellent backup in place is a no-brainer.

We have seen a number of different software and hardware backup products over the years that have provided us with a good measure of protection. Each had its peculiarities and complexities to bring things back to the way things were if a failure happened.

Having the risks of loosing a server and client data virtually eliminated via a software application and a simple USB hard drive, Drobo (product site), or NAS (wikipedia) rotation is truly brilliant.

The ShadowProtect Server and Desktop Editions have a fully functional 30 day trial. For those of us working in the I.T. industry, the ShadowProtect I.T. edition provides a Hardware Independent Recovery option where one can install the necessary drivers before beginning a recovery onto different or newer hardware. There is a 30 day trial edition for this product as well.

Links:

• StorageCraft ShadowProtect IT Edition
• StorageCraft ShadowProtect Server Edition
• StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop Edition

The trial version links will be found on the near the right hand side of the page in the second column as of this blog post.

For I.T. shops: Once you have checked out the product, StorageCraft has a Partner Program with good incentives: StorageCraft Partner Programs.

We are part of the StorageCraft Partner Program and have found the folks at StorageCraft very helpful in all aspects as well as very responsive on their product community and support forums.

And, to reaffirm: Our disclaimer still stands. We have not received any compensation for this post. The product is just that good. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Intel DQ965GF - Error on PCI Simple Communications Controller in Device Manager

We just completed a StoragCraft ShadowProtect v3 P2P migration of our data mule system from an Intel D945GTP series with a Pentium D 2.8GHz plugged into it to an Intel DQ965GFEKR series with an E6600 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo plugged in.

Other than a hiccup with the recovery portion of the P2P transfer (will blog about that in a separate post), things went relatively well.

After installing all of the updated drivers into Windows XP Pro SP2 on the system, we still had an error in the Device Manager: PCI Simple Communications Controller - Drivers not installed.

The other message we were getting, which was wrong, was from the AMT driver: AMT is not enabled. We set it up in the BIOS, so the above error was somehow tied to the AMT setup.

In the Device Manager, the PCI Simple Communications Controller did not give us any indication as to what it was though.

The solution was pretty simple though:

Intel Support Site

One needed to find out what the device was and download the driver via Intel's support site!

Intel site links:

• Desktop Boards: Error on PCI Simple Communications Controller in Device Manager
• Intel Download Locations for: Intel® ME: Management Engine Interface Driver (32bit only)

If the download link does not work, then click the link above it to hit Intel's Download Finder site and search for the Management Engine Interface Driver. Many results for the same file will come up.

Install the driver, reboot the system, and the AMT message will now indicate that AMT is enabled if it was during board setup.

UPDATE: Note that for Vista x64 and DQ965GF and DQ35JOE boards, one needs to hit the following download links:

• DQ35JOE Windows Vista x64 Downloads
• Intel® ME: Management Engine Interface Driver

Note that the 64bit version in the second link will work for both boards.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

StorageCraft - Small Business Special Expiration

Folks, if you have quotes based on the StorageCraft Small Business special of 1 server and 10 desktops, now is the time to get those orders in as the special has expired.

StorageCraft will honour the original special for 30 days from the release of their new version 3 of ShadowProtect for Desktops and Servers. The new version was released August 24, 2007.

That grace period ends: September 23, 2007.

This may give your clients a bit of incentive to order now to avoid a price increase in their backup/recovery solution.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.