> Perhaps I missed something in reading this, or my interpretation of a
> 'bare metal restore' is different from yours.
I use the term "bare metal" in the sense that when the process is started,
there is no software or operating system installed. In other words, I'm
talking about the system being bare metal, not BackupPC being a "bare
metal restore" imaging program.
> My definition of 'bare metal restore' is taking essentially an image of
> the
> current disk, copying it to some media, and then using that image to do a
> bit-by-bit (sector-by-sector, track-by-track) copy from the backup medium
> to
> the target medium. For me, the bit by bit copy is primary for the OS, and
> possibly including the application programs (word, ppoint, etc.) I don't
> buy into the M$ organization of files and disks. I partition my hd for
> OS,
> Applications, and User Data. I baremetal restore the OS partition and
> usually the Application partition using Acronis True Image. (True Image is
> more or less functionally equivalent to Norton Ghost-the enterprise
> version,
> not the butched commercial version they have sold in stores since V9 (I
> think)). I store the images on a NAS that is backed up.
> I do restores in one of two ways: Use the restore CD that Acronis allows
> you
> to make-bareboot the machine, the pull the image from a server, or,
> netboot
> the machine, and using an image loader, pull the restore image from the
> server and put it on the HD.
> Once the target machine is capable of booting the newly restored image,
> you
> can run backup pc (which I gave up on some time ago) or whatever your
> favorite backup program is, and copy the backed up user data area to the
> target HD.
I'm not really advocating that people start *planning* on recovering full
operating systems using nothing but BackupPC, I'm only suggesting that
it's possible if that's all you happen to have.
> In your writeup, you talk about reinstalling windows just to get a working
> copy of the OS "if anything?s installed or working, you?re going to wipe
> it all out anyway" so why essentially do the install twice?
1) Because BackupPC doesn't have a LiveCD that does recoveries
2) Because Windows XP has never had a LiveCD
3) Because you still need boot sectors, even if either 1 or 2 were true
The technique as outlined does allow you to recover on pretty much any
hardware that Microsoft XP supports, which includes "raid" cards,
proprietary metadata and exotic controllers.
Note that the entire registry is recovered as well.
> Your method does allow for the most recent (more or less) snapshot of most
> of the relevant windoz files but doing an image every so often would
> essentially do the same thing.
To clarify a bit: it allows for 100% of the files to be recovered, but
permissions/owners/flags are not fully preserved.
> In many cases, it may actually be better
> to install a clean load image of the OS and apps, rather than restore
> something that may be corrupted/virus infected.
I'm also not advocating this recovery method in all cases (obviously.)
> In systems where I have this
> concern,
> I have an image of a clean xp + backup program restore that I use. It is
> all
> done over the net, minimal (if any) manual intervention at the target
> machine. If need be, I can also remove the target HD, connect it to the
> NAS, then copy the image directly via the SATA/IDE interface, then put the
> disk back in the target machine.
I have something similar, it's just not always the best choice. Note that
I've also documented extracting specific registry keys from BackupPC
backups in cases where you need to retrieve, for example, an installation
key.
> Sorry, but I don't see how this method is a baremetal restore with a
> manual step in installing windoz. Your still screwing around with loading
> via CD a copy of XP, and then cgwin, and then 'manually copying' files in
> the XP subdirectories. Seems like a lot of places for things to fall
> through the cracks with file contents not being 'in synch' and I also
> wonder about registry consistency and backup.
As I mentioned, one starts with bare metal -- it's not an unattended bare
metal restore.
As I documented, there are three directories that need to be renamed (six
if you count the ones you're replacing.) The registry is perfectly intact
and consistent; naturally this requires one of the rsync/VSS methods that
have been outlined here before. As, frankly, is every other file, which
includes databases, Outlook, and so on. (It does highlight the need to
use rsync/VSS and not just use rsync or SMB.)
> It may, however, work fine in your environment.
> -J
I expect it to work as documented in anybody's environment, with the
quirks and limitations outlined. Whether or not somebody can live with
that certainly depends on their environment.
As I've mentioned, I don't think I'd plan on this being my only recovery
method, but it's worth documenting because it does actually work, and I've
been around long enough to know that it's not unusual for more than one
thing to go horribly, horribly wrong, and the same voltage surge that
burned out both drives in your mirrored pair may have killed your image
backup as well. :)
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