"Bare Machine Restore" of NT4 client

[pbanghart]

G'day all...



I know questions about BMR circulate alot, so my apologies upfront for asking again, but I'm stuck and I'm hoping someone has some suggestions...



I'm trying to "rebuild" a Windows NT4 Primary Domain Controller (I know, it should be upgraded to W2K...long story there). The kicker is that I need to do this on dis-similar hardware (this is a disaster recovery exercise, identical hardware is not available).



I create a basic NT4 server, install a TSM client and restore data without a problem. I save the original BOOT.INI and related files, then put them back on top after restoring the registry and the machine boots...but it doesn't know it's a PDC.



Here's my question: has anyone successfully restored a server from scratch on different hardware, especially a PDC? Is it possible to bypass certain parts of the registry restore (specifically those that choke on the hardware differences) in order to get the "new" machine back into operation?





Suggestions, advice, thoughts on this topic would be greatly appreciated!!



Regards,





-PB

 

[heada]

There is a company in the UK that specializes in DR-type software. When we started using it for our AIX systems, it reduced the recovery time by 50%.(Supports AIX, Win*, Sun and Linux) We have since included some of our WinNT/2K servers and they have been recovered without issue. We even recovered a Compaq Proliant server onto a IBM xSeries server.



The company is IndigoStone.



It's not built into TSM, but it does play well with TSM. It's not cheap, but it does work and work well. I have recovered a WinNT 4 server running Oracle and a WinNT 4 PDC. Win2K seems to work better.



Every BMR software IBM has either suggested or bundled with TSM hasn't worked nearly as well as this one does.



-Aaron

 

[chad_small]

Our standard is that we never restore a DC, reason being that to get the system back to a point where you restore the system (meaning you've installed the OS int he first place) you could rebuild the DC before the restore finished. Also, the NT admins reasoning is that its always better to get a system back to a "fresh" level rather than use an install that is old and possibly has issues.