Stratesave can make a full restore of a running system, replacing the currently running operating system with the backed up. You need not restore the system to a separate disk or partition first. This is also not recommended for Windows 2003/2000/XP, because the System State must be restored on the running system.
Making full restore of the running system goes rather deep in the heart of the system, and includes system state and registry restore as well as restore of locked files. Full restore of running system is a little more delicate than normal restore. For it to be successfull beware of the following:
·Full restore of running system means to restore all drives, or at least system drive and System State, while the system is running. This must be done in 1 single restore run, then reboot the system.
·Run the Full Restore as Administrator, and the system to be restored in Directory Services Restore Mode for Windows 2000/XP. Directory Services Restore Mode (or Safe Mode) is best even for restoring Windows 2000/XP workstation, to avoid interference with Windows File Protection (WFP). After reboot, press F8 and Select Directory Services Restore Mode, before running the full restore.
·Do not "upgrade" or "downgrade" with your full restore. The backed up operating system version should be exactly the same as the one being replaced. For example, you can not restore Windows NT over Windows 95 and you can not restore Windows 2000 over NT 4.0. Even built-levels and service packs must match, you can Full restore Windows 2000 Service pack 2 only over a running system with the same service pack installed.
For every backup Stratesave stores the Windows version of your PC in the Log. Before starting a full restore, verify that the backed up version of Windows is currently running. Compare Windows versions shown in Log and in Restore program's About-Box.
Hint: After you install a service pack which you downloaded from the net, keep the service pack available on your computer and include it in your backups, If your PC crashes you can then reinstall the operating system, restore the service pack from backup, reinstall the service pack so backed up OS version exactly match with the one you have, then do the full restore. Usually only the latest service pack is available for download, so keep your service pack after you install it. Example: You install Windows 2000, then download service pack 2 from the net, and install it. What might happen if you then make the mistake to remove it from our PC? You install your applications, define your personal settings etc. and make a full backup. After a while you have the worst case scenario: disk crash. In the mean time, the latest service pack is 3, and service pack 2 might be no longer available for download. Now the full restore requires you to have matching service packs on PC and in backup and might not work as expected because you can't install service pack 2 anymore.
·Have enough space on the disk partition to be restored. The disk space of partition with installed operating system should be at least 100 MBytes (50 MBytes for Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 95/98) more than space of backed up files. The reason is that locked files and registry hive files will not be overwritten directly at restore, but they will each be restored to a separate file to be replaced at next reboot. These files require additional space. One way to make space on the system drive before restore is to define swap space on another drive, and no swap space on system drive (with Control Panel->System->Advanced->Performance options... on Windows 2000). Per default, a big amount of swap space is assigned on system drive.
·Install the new system in the same directory as the backed up system. For example, if the backed up system was installed in directory \WINNT, the system installed before full restore should also be in \WINNT. Drive letter should also match. It is best if drive number and partition number are also the same as in backup. For example, if you backed up Windows 2000 which was installed on disk 2 partition 3 of your computer in drive G:, it is best to reinstall the system in the same disk and partition same location with same drive name. The partition sizes may vary though if desired. If you replace the crashed hard drive with a larger one, there is no problem in defining larger partitions before reinstalling and fully restoring the system.
·Before you make a full restore over running system, do not add or remove disk partitions on your hard drives. If you have reconfigured one or more of your drives partitions, reboot first, before starting the full restore.
·For Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server with Active Directory installed (domain controller): Install Windows 2000 and configure the same Computer name as backed up. If you don't there can be problems during Active Directory restoration later. Also configure time zone correctly during installation. Then install Active Directory on the computer, and install the same service pack as was backed up. Hint: If you have a reserve PC to recover from a total PC crash, you might already setup the reserve PC with Windows 2000 and AD + Service pack installed. Reboot the system in Directory Service Restore mode (press F8 during reboot and select Directory Services restore mode). Now start Stratesave Restore program and run the full restore: select System State, and System drive, and root directory of boot drive for Restore. Do not select Exchange Server, SQL Server databases, and SharePoint Portal Server for restore at this time.
After full restore, if you want an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory, run NTDSUTIL. This is if you have multiple domain controllers, and want the restored Active Directory to propagate among the other servers. Please see documentation of NTDSUTIL or NTDSUTIL /?
Finally reboot the system in normal mode. If you setup the Windows 2000 server with a different computer name than backed up, Active Directory cannot start. In this case, reboot to directory services restore mode, and restore the Active Directory database again.
For restoration of a computer with both Active directory and Certificate Server, first install Windows 2000 without Certificate Server. Then install Active directory and reboot. After that, install Certificate Services (through Optional Components). Then install the same Windows Service Pack as the system had when backed up. Then reboot in Directory services restore mode, and restore the entire system, including System State and System Drive (but not yet Exchange and SQL databases), in a single run, then reboot. Finally restore the certificate, which you (should) have backed up to file separately, with Certificate Authority tool, or certutil -restorekey. Only select Private key and CA certificate for restore, don't select Issued certificate log and pending certificate request queue, because the database was restored with Stratesave.
·It is best to avoid access errors. This can be done if backup server and computer to be restored have same Administrator user account name and password. Before the restore, change the password on backup server with Ctrl-Alt-Del, set it to same value as computer to be restored.
·During Restore, when Overwrite Newer file-dialog pops up, select Restore and All files, then press OK.
·After full restore, immediately reboot the system. Do not reboot with another operating system first, and do not add or remove hard drives from your system during the reboot.
·During Windows boot, do not press spacebar "to enter last known good menu". This applies to session before and after full restore.
·You can not full restore a non-boot-partition over a boot-partition and vice versa. The boot partition is the first partition on the boot drive. If you installed Windows 2003/2000/XP/NT on another than the boot partition, you can not restore it over a running system at the boot partition, because installation at boot partition difference significantly from installation at a non-boot partition.
·After a full Restore, perform a full backup, before making incremental or differential backups again. Full backup made before the full restore cannot be used as a base for incremental or differential backups made after the full restore, so a full backup is required after the full restore.
·Windows 2003/2000/XP provides registry entries 'FilesNotToBackup' and 'KeysNotToRestore'. These keys to some degree allow a full restore even with changed hardware. Stratesave follows these keys.
·For full restore of a system with SQL Server or Exchange Server installed, reinstall Windows first and make a full restore with final reboot as described. Restore all the drives, and System State first, then reboot. This will restore SQL server and Exchange server installations, but not the databases. Exchange Server volumes will not be mounted because they were not yet restored, and SQL server will not start, because there is no master database. Exchange Server can then be fully restored with Stratesave. After restoring Exchange Server, it's volumes can be mounted with Exchange System Manager or by reboot. Full restoration of SQL server is described here.
·For full restore of computers with SharePoint Portal Server 2001, first fully restore the computer without SharePoint Portal Server. SharePoint Portal Server 2001 cannot start at this point, because its databases were not restore. The best procedure is to uninstall the remaining installation of SharePoint Portal Server, then reinstall it, and upgrade it to the same service pack as it had when backed up. Then restore the SharePoint Portal Server 2001.
·If the System is fully restored with System State, files and directories, it might not be necessary to also restore the VSS databases, because they were backed up as files under VSS, and therefore restored with full restore.
·For restore of Windows ME systems, the restore cannot work with the Windows ME's System File Protection and System Restore. These services prohibit Stratesave from restoring some files (Access denied error). It is best to turn these services off, before making the full restore. With registry editor, go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VxDMon, and set keys SystemFileProtection and SystemRestore to "N" (they are "Y" by default). Then reboot the system, and run the full restore.
·Full restore of Network backups:
Full restore of PCs which have been backed up through file shares by another Computer work the same way as normal full restores. You can initiate the full restore from backup server, so you don't have to install Stratesave on the computer which is going to be restored. Or you can also install Stratesave on the backup client, and start Stratesave restore from there. Best is to have same username/password with Administrator access on the backup server and on the client to be restored.
·For networked full restore of Windows 95, 98 or ME system from a backup server, perform as follows:
1. Install the OS on the backup client. The OS version must be the same as in backup (95 if backed up was 95, 98 if backup has 98, ME if backup has ME). 2. Enable remote administration, which can be done via Control panel -> Passwords. Remote administration is required on backup client for network restore of locked files and registry files to work. 3. On the backup server, select the desired files/directories for restore. Note that you can select everything as desired, and overwrite/replace the entire system remotely. Best is to restore relative to the C$ (and D$ E$ etc) shares, and only use those administrative shares for restore. If you use your own shares, Stratesave will prompt you for the name that these shares represent on the remote PC. Be prepared to provide this information. For example, you share the directory C:\Mywindows directory as \\PC\MYWINSHARE, and want to restore locked files into that directory. Then Stratesave will ask you what MYWINSHARE represents, and you should specify C:\Mywindows. For the C$, D$ etc shares, Stratesave does not ask, because Stratesave assumes they locally stand for C:\ D:\ etc. 4. Be sure that restore option 'Restore locked files and registry at reboot' is on, and start the restore. 5. After full restore completes, Stratesave will tell you to reboot the network computer, to complete restoration of locked files and registry files.
·Summary: For the full restore to work properly, check that backed up version of OS exactly matches the one currently installed (including service pack nr, which must also match), then be sure to have at least 100MBytes reserve in disk space, and reboot immediately before and after doing your full restore. On Windows 2003/2000/XP, run the system to be restored in Directory Services Restore mode, and include System State with full restore. Restore SQL Server and Exchange Server databases, and SharePoint Portal Server separately after system is fully restored.
See also: Disaster Recovery (ASR)