First thing is to decide exactly what kind of restore you are trying to do.

-In the case of a hard drive failure, and the machine won't boot, do you
want to do a bare-metal restore?  The reason for doing a bare-metal restore
is to recover system state and installed software as well as data.  Isn't
supported across different hardware, although people have reported
considerable success doing it with XP and 2003.

If that's what you really want, search this list for "bare metal restore",
and search the TSM support page for  "bare machine restore", you'll find
lots of instructions.  In general, you reload Windows to the point you can
get back on the network, then restore the C: drive and system state with
the  TSM BA client.

-In the case of a laptop upgrade, you are probably going to be moving to
different hardware and re-establishing the software environment anyway -
you'll probably be installing upgraded/new releases of software, different
drivers, etc.  In that case, usually all you want to do is recover the
user's data.  For that case, I also really like the Tivoli CDP for files
product.  It's very inexpensive, provides continuous protection, and is much
more tolerant of frequent network disconnects.

Either way, you want to get your Windows guys an imaging product (not an
image backup) like Ghost; there are several others on the market as well.
The idea is to create a "pretty standard" desktop setup, that already has
the office, mail, and browser products your company uses installed on it.
You make a copy with the Ghost(like) product, then anytime somebody needs a
new laptop/hard disk, you can load the "standard" Windows environment very
quickly.

Then either do your bare metal restore, or your CDP restore.

W

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Nicholas Rodolfich <
NRodolfich AT cmaontheweb DOT com> wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> Thanks for your help!!
>
>
> I am primarily a server guy with a UNIX background so I am light on the
> Windows platform as it relates to client backup/restore. Our organization
> has about 50 laptops (mostly XP pro) that we need to backup so that we can
> restore  them during drive failure issues or laptop upgrades. We seem to be
> having more and more drive failure since the SATA drives have proliferated
> into the market. The majority of our laptop fleet is primarily remote to
> our office. I hope to be able to provide a solution where we can have users
> take a backup of their laptop when they are in the office every other week
> or so. That way when we do have a drive failure or someone gets a laptop
> refresh they don't have to totally recreate their laptop's working
> environments. Currently the  windows guys are starting over completely
> using the recovery CDs supplied by the vendor (Lenovo) but just feeding the
> 6 CDs is a 4 hours deal.
>
> My question leans toward the whole backup/restore process. What is the
> easiest/best way to backup and restore these laptops. I was thinking of
> using the TSM image capabilities but reading up on it seems like there are
> several prerequisites to making it work. Maybe Christie BMR, or Fastback
> but Fastback requires the MS AIK, another server, etc..  I can and have
> read much  doc on the subject but I would prefer some empirical knowledge
> from those who really know before I start banging my head against the wall.
> Any advice rendered would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks Again!!
>
> Nicholas