Even though there's been a lot of response to the NT Bare metal restore
registry problem I'd like to respond with the following:

After experiencing problems backing up the ntuser.dat file, this is the
file the holds a user profile (together with ntuser.dat.log) I concluded
that not all documentation on bare metal restore was up to date. What
used to be under NT 3.x for profiles is not under V4, that is to say the
profiles have been moved form \system32\config directory (which is set
for exclusion in the options file) to the \profiles directory. Thus when
doing a full back-up logged on as a user that user's profile (registry
entry HKEY_USERS housed in the ntuser.dat and ntuser.dat.log) does not
get backed-up it's locked by NT (check this in the ADSM log files) just
as any other active registry hive is locked (and no, excluding these
files in the options file is no solution). Ultimately any desktop
persolization for that one user is lost after a B.M.  restore,  I think
IBM has to do a remake on the way the registry is backed-up under V4.
The solution to the problem is to do a scheduled unattended backup with
nobody logged on (no ntuser.dat locked), to do this you'll have to have
the dsmc sched running as an NT service using the system account (or
possibly using a local scheduler to call dsmc inc ...).
Yesterday I went thru the whole scenario without a hitch, I did a full
restore from a repair partition, copied the necessary registry files, as
outlined in B.M. restore, rebooted the system and the restored NT
partition came up just fine, personilizations and all.

Walter Ridderhof,     Mainland Sequoia,    Netherland

Jerry Lawson wrote:

> ---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes
> ---------------------------
> From: INTERNET.OWNERAD at SNADGATE
> Date: 1/14/98 8:46AM
> To: Jerry Lawson at ASUPO
> *To: *ADSM-L at SNADGATE
> Subject: Re: BAre Metal Restore on NT V4
> ----------------------------------------
> --------------------------------------
> Dan -
>
> An interesting development...... Since I sent out the original note, I
> had a
> chance to restore it back to NTFS.  Here is how I made it work......
>
> 1.  Reformatted the drive
>
> 2.  Restored the data
>
> 3.  Copied the adsm.sys files to the winnt/system32/config
> registry.....
>
> 4.  Rebooted the machine, signed on as my normal id.  All settings
> were
> missing.
>
> 5.  Started ADSM, and did a registry restore - all objects, users,
> etc.
>
> 6.  Rebooted the machine.  Logged on again as my normal id.  All
> registry
> entries were back!
>
> Obviously, the last step did the trick - this step is not documented
> in the
> redbook.  I read the description of the regrest command in the manual,
> and it
> sounded like it was doing the same things the manual steps from the
> redbook
> was doing (step3 above), but there was more.
>
> Thanks for your assistance.
>
> Jerry
>
> ______________________________ Forward Header
> __________________________________
> Subject: Re: BAre Metal Restore on NT V4
> Author:  INTERNET.OWNERAD at SNADGATE
> Date:    1/14/98 8:46 AM
>
> ---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes
> ---------------------------
> From: INTERNET.OWNERAD at SNADGATE
> Date: 1/13/98 6:04PM
> To: Jerry Lawson at ASUPO
> *To: *ADSM-L at SNADGATE
> Subject: Re: BAre Metal Restore on NT V4
> ----------------------------------------
> --------------------------------------
> Dan -
>
> For NTUSER.DAT, I run a REGBACK command as part of the startup routine
> on the
> machine.  I checked the dates on the files in adsm.sys - the
> information on
> my id (adsm.sys\registry\lawsonj\users\lawsonj - machine name is
> lawsonj) was
> 1/8/98, which seems right, but for the admin id
> (adsm.sys\registry\lawsonj\users\administrator) the date was 4/17/97.
> This
> is confusing, since I know I have logged on as the administrator since
> last
> April, and even if I hadn't - ADSM registry info would be kept under
> my id,
> not the admin.
>
> As for why did I do this..... it wasn't my first choice.  I am having
> difficulty doing an upgrade to cc:Mail 6.02 - it hangs during the
> install.
> There was concern about this being because of the NTFS - cc:Mail V6 is
> a 16
> bit app that attempts to write directly to the disk, so the thought
> was to
> try to eliminate this as a cause of the problem.  BTW - it didn't
> work, I
> tried to install again yesterday under FAT, but it failed again in the
> same
>  place  :-(
>
> I intend to go back to NTFS shortly.
>
> Jerry
>
> ______________________________ Forward Header
> __________________________________
>
> Subject: Re: BAre Metal Restore on NT V4
> Author:  INTERNET.OWNERAD at SNADGATE
> Date:    1/13/98 6:04 PM
>
> Jerry,
>
>   I did not notice in your steps any reference to restoring any users
> NTUSER.DAT files.  If a user is logged on when you back up normally,
> then
> you will also have to copy that NTUSER.DAT file from the c:\adsm.sys
> subdirectory.
>
> However, the settings for ADSM, Excel etc. seems like a bigger problem
> than
> this.  What were the date stamps on the files in adsm.sys?
>
> FMI, why did you format the partition as FAT instead of NTFS again?
> There
> is a remote possibility you can lose some security control of certain
> of
> the files.  Remote, in this case, because few people place extra
> security
> on the system drive.
>
> Dan T.
> ----------
>
> > From: Jerry Lawson <jlawson AT THEHARTFORD DOT COM>
> > To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject: BAre Metal Restore on NT V4
> > Date: Tuesday, January 13, 1998 1:40 PM
> >
> > Date:     January 13, 1998              Time: 10:18 AM
> > From:     Jerry Lawson
> >           The Hartford Insurance Group
> > (860)  547-2960          jlawson AT thehartford DOT com
> >
> -
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  -
> > Yesterday I had the distinct joy and privilege of doing a bare metal
>
> restore
> > on my C: drive under NT V4 Workstation.  I had planned ahead, and
> had a
> > repair partition built and tested, so there was no really
> excruciating
> pain
> > involved, but I have had some interesting problems with the registry
>
> since
> > then.
> >
> > Here is what I did:
> >
> > 1.  Booted from repair partition.
> >
> > 2.  Deleted old C: drive (NTFS format), and reformatted (as FAT) -
> size
> did
> > not change.
> >
> > 3.  Started ADSM (V3 client) and restored the entire C: drive.
> >
> > 4.  When the restore was complete, I copied the registry information
> from
> the
> > adsm.sys directory to the WINNT/SYSTEM32 directory as described in
> the
>  > redbook on bare metal restores.  (all 3 directories - all
> components
>
> within
> > the directories.
> >
> > 5.  I shut down the repair partition, and rebooted from the freshly
> restored
> > c: drive.  NT came up fine, but many of my preferences were gone.
> >
> >
> > I should point out here that I have been running REGBACK each day as
> part
> of
> > the boot procedure.
> >
> > What was missing?   For example, all of the icons were back on my
> desktop,
> > but were rearranged.  The desktop customization (color, picture)
> were
> gone.
> > The screen definitions (1024 x 768) were there, but the fonts look
> strange,
> > Sound customization was also gone.  Applications like the ADSM
> > Administrator's registry entries are also gone.  Microsoft Word V7
> had
> the
> > same problem, as did XCEL.
> >
> > I did not expect this much lost information - Does anyone know if
> this is
> > normal, or did I miss something in the restore (or backup) process?
> >
> >
> -
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -
> >                                                      Jerry
> >
> > Insanity is doing the same thing over and over..and expecting the
> results
> to
> > be different - Anon.