Hi,
(only just now discovered this thread)
> I read about ntbackup of systemstate a while back. But I seem to
> recall that one of the key things it backs up are the registry hives
> which I do with shadow copy. So I wonder what the 'systemstate' adds
> to a full shadow copy (plus full subinacl acl backup). Specifically,
> the page you reference says:
> Windows XP Professional: The System State data includes only the
> registry, COM+ Class Registration database, files under Windows
> File Protection, and boot files."
> Note that the COM+ Class Registration database is stored under:
> C:\Windows\Registration
> which seems to be backed up correctly under my shadow script.
> So, I'm not sure what if anything it adds (at least in the non-Domain
> controller non-Cluster setting).
>
I'm someone that completely agrees on the subject of Windows and backup and
the complexity of it. It's one of the reasons I would never setup
Windows as a server
(if I think prevent it).
I'll tell you what I think about how the system state and some other
things in
Windows work.
The registry (among other things) holds information about a number of
things:
- driveletter and partitions/filesystems mapping information
- information about drivers to load at startup
Then somewhere else (I forgot right now) it also keeps information about
machine-id,
domain (member ?)-id and thus also the machine-id/localusername-mapping.
To be honest, I don't really know how these are mapped to NTFS (in
unix/linux it's
id's in the filesystem, name/id mappings in passwd, etc.).
Also the filesystem has an ID as wel, just like you have 'blkid' in Linux.
So to boot a windows-system you need to have a few things setup right:
- information about hardware drivers, especially the HD-controller and
maybe some other motherboard chips
- the driver needs to be installed
- the right drive-mapping, which has several methods, which possible
even changed
over the years (from NT4 to Windows 2008R2), it used to be the
partitions. But it
may now also use some filesystem id (as you can add a 'signature' to the
filesystem).
I'm not sure.
The idea about system-state-backup I think was, you create such a
backup, then
on an other machine to a new installation and then do a of the restore
system-state-backup.
The new installation would create the proper information in the registry
about
hardware-drivers, drive-letter mappings and filesystem-ids, etc. And
then you restore
the system-state-backup and get all the other registry settings back.
Maybe you also first need to install all the applications on the system
so their
settings also get overwritten ? I don't know. Maybe you install the
after the steps
above.
'fun'
A few months ago I was trying to create a rsync with VSS-capabilities
( http://consolejunky.net/cwrsync-vss/ ) build in, I however have been
really busy
with other things. Not even took the time to update the README.
My lastest binary did work on all the windows-versions I could easily
support:
- does NOT work: windows 2000 would not be supported, it doesn't have VSS
- does work: windows XP has an old version of VSS
- does work: all 32-bit versions of windows vista/2003 and newer, I skip
the 'junction-points'
- does NOT work: all 64-bit versions of windows, I didn't think I could
create a usable
build-enviroment, but I recently found ming64 might be the answer (so
building on Linux).
I don't know if that's useful to you folks.
What I did last time with a windows machine with a bad harddisk (but
still kind of running,
including windows), I plug in the new harddisk on the same machine
create the new
partitions and filesystems and xcopy with acl information on the new
disk and open the
registry on the new harddisk and load the hive in a registry editor and
change the drive
mapping so it can find the right C:, etc.
Plug the new disk on the right cable and run:
http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm
I hope this adds something useful to the discussion.
Have a nice weekend,
Leen.
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