Hello everyone,
I guess I should mention that, after asking this question initially, I
solved my own problem by not using a *nix rescue disk. Instead, I simply
took another machine and piggybacked the broken drive to it along with
changing DNS to link to the machine (Note that I had to restart nscd on the
server because of this). After hooking up the drive, I backed it up to the
current "C" drive (just in case) and deleted all the data from it (except
for the System Volume Information folder). I then when into the rsyncd.conf
file and simply changed the Path from /cygdrive/c/ to
/cygdrive/DriveLetterOfPiggyBackedDrive/. I finally went onto BackupPC and
clicked "Restore" which, a short while later, restored the entire cDrive.
If anyone is interested, here is the original file setup
(http://www.cyberdeath.us/backuppc/rsyncd.zip). Please note that I have
only had the opportunity to test this on Windows XP and not Windows 7.
Also, like others have stated, it did not recreate the ACL data. I would
love, as I am sure others would as well, to see an Cygwin rsyncd build that
handles ACLs as well as VSS. Much thanks to Leen Besselink for writing the
one I use :-).
~Ryan
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Michael Stowe" <mstowe AT chicago.us.mensa DOT org>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 11:42 PM
To: "Jeffrey J. Kosowsky" <backuppc AT kosowsky DOT org>; "General list for
user
discussion,questions and support" <backuppc-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] Restore entire Windows OS using rsync
(usingrescue disk)?
>> Michael Stowe wrote at about 20:17:18 -0600 on Monday, January 3, 2011:
>> > You are correct, but if the registry is backed up to BackupPC (using
>> VSS,
>> > for example, since it's always open) then it can be restored
>> consistently.
>> > The trick is to unpack it in a different place than the registry in
>> the
>> > running OS, then switch over using the recovery console. (I do have
>> > complete details, should you want them.)
>> >
>> > Like you, I recommend tar, although rsync can probably be made to work
>> if
>> > you don't try to restore to the original locations.
>>
>> Couple of questions:
>> - Does restoring the registry (actually it seems like there are
>> multiple registries) restore all the detailed Windows ACL's and ssid
>> stuff?
>
> No, they're not stored in the registry, they're stored in an NTFS database
> that isn't exposed as a file -- more accurately, they're stored in
> metafiles that NTFS doesn't allow to be read as files (without tools like
> the NTFS File Sector Information Utility.)
>
>> - How do you handle junctions?
>
> I haven't tried it -- I suspect they end up being two copies of the file,
> but I don't know, since I don't happen to have any being backed up
>
>> My understanding is that cygwin sees directory junction as symbolic
>> links. This is important because Win7 has a lot of important
>> junctions to preserve compatibility with WinXP/2000 and I know for
>> certain that Win7 doesn't work well when junctions are replaced by
>> symbolic links
>> - NTFS has various other non-POSIX features that are not translated by
>> cygwin (and hence certainly not captured by rsync). One example is
>> multiple file streams. Now I don't know if any of these other
>> features are commonly used in Windows but I do think there is
>> some type of Master Record that is used. In any case, what have you
>> done to restore those items?
>
> Rsync doesn't see alternate data streams, so they're not backed up. This
> is where stuff like the data that tells you that a zip file was downloaded
> from the Internet is stored, so all that's lost. I'm not aware of any
> other common alternate data streams, but that doesn't mean they don't
> exist.
>
>> - I guess more generally, have you succeeded in doing a bare metal
>> restore of Window 7 (or even XP) or do you just do this to restore
>> user files?
>
> XP: yes
> 7: haven't tried it, but assume it's possible
>
> Both of the above subject to the loss of ACL's and ADS's.
>
>> If you are just restoring user files, I find that my script to
>> record all the ACL's (not just the POSIX ones captured by getfacl)
>> using subinacl is useful since I can then grep/sed against it to
>> restore selected ACL's with individual files.
>
> I'm certainly missing those, so I haven't tried restoring them. My
> backups are a pretty vanilla rsync/VSS.
>
>> Again, I don't have much experience in restoring windows so I would
>> love to hear experiences from others who have done actual bare-metal
>> or close to bare-metal restores of Windows systems
>> (Yes, I shamefully admit that even though I have contributed a fair
>> bit of coded to do shadow backups and backup ACL's, I haven't had the
>> time or opportunity to really test it on bare-metal restores)
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>
>
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