No, it's not the only way.
Most of our WinNT servers have more than one hard disk, anyway, so we
can use 2 disks to restore. But most of our WinNT 4.0 workstations have
only 1 disk, so that's what I work with. I have done bare-metal
recovery of 3 WinNT 4.0 systems with only 1 hard disk. You just format
the C: drive, reinstall WinNT from the original media to the C: drive,
then install the ADSM client, then tell ADSM to recover the C: drive.
THEN you restore the registry, then reboot. It works fine for us.
There are definitely advantages to using the 2-disk recovery method:
* On a large server, you can install WInNT and a copy of the ADSM client
on your second drive as part of your standard configuration. That way
you are prepared ahead of time. Then if you have a hard disk failure on
the primary drive, you can start recovery immediately by booting the
alternate partition, without taking the extra time we do to reinstall
WinNT itself.
* With the one-disk recovery method, there is some risk of back-leveling
some WinNT modules. If you reinstall WinNT on the C: drive from the
original media, boot from the C: drive, then recover the C: drive, ADSM
cannot restore the WinNT executables that are actually in use. So there
is some risk that you are back-levelling some WinNT executables. You
can avoid problems with this if you keep good records on which service
packs are installed on the WinNT server, and bring WinNT back up to that
level before you start the recovery.
You can make either way work, if you proceed carefully and keep good
records. If you have no control over your configuration, no
standardization, and no idea what has been installed on the WinNT
system, the 2-disk method is probably preferable. Either way, I
STRONGLY recommend practicing your NT 4.0 recovery AHEAD of time. Note
I have worked only with NT 4.0, not NT 3.5.1.
=======================================================================
Wanda Prather
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
301-953-6000 X8769
wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think."
- Scott Adams/Dilbert
=======================================================================
>----------
>From: Julie Phinney[SMTP:julphinn AT emphesys.e-mail DOT com]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 1997 12:08 PM
>To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>Subject: Win NT disaster recovery
>
>We are planning to do a recovery test at the disaster hot site this
>summer. We're going to bring empty machines to do recoveries of
>OS/2, Novell, and Win NT servers. I've figured out the OS/2 and Novell
>client bootable diskette recoveries, but I don't know much about Win NT
>As I read the doc I got from Redbook Piece ADSM Client Disaster
>Recovery, it appears the only way to recover an NT server is to have
>100 MB bootable partition installed on a removable hard drive, that
>we'd have to bring to the hot site. Do I understand this correctly?
>Thanks for any help!
>Julie Phinney
>JULPHINN @ EMPHESYS.E-MAIL.COM
>
|
