Joe,

We ran into this before.
To start of with an important notice. Microsoft does not support this, and
claims it is not possible to restore to different hardware.
Having that said, i also want to mention that we do a periodical test at a
disaster recovery site. At this site we do not have identical hardware, if
possible at all.

Note:
When restoring on a server using a separate partition or install directory,
copy the boot.ini so you can edit it after the restore, making it matching
for the installed OS and the restored one. If the restored OS does not boot,
you can select the recovery OS in the boot.ini to boot to the recovery OS
and try some more actions.

One option is:
Find out witch dll's represent the drivers for the installed hardware on the
recovery machine. The one you installed the restore OS on.
Restore the entire OS using a separate install directory or partition.
Select the driver-dll's and overwrite the restored ones in the restored OS.
Mostly these are drivers for the diskarray's.
Try to use somewhat similar NIC's when doing this.
This seems simple, but will be quite a hassle if it turns out to be the
wrong driver. Our NT-admins tried this, and had it working in several
occasions. THIS IS VERY HARDWARE DEPENDANT!

The other option is:
At our DR site this is the prefered method.
Again, install a recovery OS on a separate partion, or in a separate
directory.
Restore the entire OS. Preserve the installed boot.ini.
Reboot after the restore, but make sure it boots in setup mode, with the NT
setup CD-rom in the drive. Select and perform the upgrade option in the
setup menu. To get the upgrade option, the boot.ini should be at its
original location, so i'm told.
After the upgrade you can reboot, and run your prefered SP update.
THIS IS LESS HARDWARE DEPENDANT!

The second option is more work, but proved to be the more reliable one.
Again, it is not supported by anyone.

I hope your business continuity does not rely on this.
GOOD LUCK.


Ilja G. Coolen


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CIS / BS / TB / Storage Management
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