E-Bitz - SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS "Diva"

Hey Cool! I Dr. Watson'd!

Remember the other day when my cheap test box did this?

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2006/03/21/87198.aspx

When I rebooted back into it tonight... Hey!  Cool!  I got a Dr. Watson!  And yeah.. I should at least set up a USB harddrive for this even though it is a test box....

Hard disk drive error detected

Thank you for submitting an error report.

Problem description

Windows was temporarily unable to read your hard disk drive. This problem is general in nature and unfortunately we are unable to determine the specific cause of the read error from the error report. In most cases this problem is temporary and can be ignored; however, if the problem is occurring repeatedly we recommend you follow the additional troubleshooting steps in this article.

Common causes of this problem include:

• Large file transfers from secondary media to local hard drive
• Power loss to hard disk drive causing inconsistent data sectors
• Problems entering Hibernation or Standby Mode
• Hard drive lag caused by filter drivers, such as virus scanners
• Bad connection cables, or misconfigured master/slave settings

Additional troubleshooting steps

The following steps are provided as general troubleshooting steps and may or may not prevent the problem from reoccurring. If you can not resolve the problem using the steps below or are uncomfortable performing the following actions, we recommend you contact your computer manufacturer for assistance.

1. Back up your files and folders immediately to prevent potential data loss. Review the article 320820 to learn how to backup your data.
2. Run a hard disk drive error checking utility. Review the article 315265 to learn how to run a hard disk drive error checking utility.
3. Contact the manufacturer that sold you your hard disk drive for support options.
4. Re-seat or replace the drive cables.
5. Consult your computer documentation or contact your manufacturer for proper drive hardware settings.

Note: As a general rule, Microsoft recommends you backup your files on a regular basis in case of any unexpected hardware failures.

Microsoft is interested in your opinions about Windows Error Reporting so that we can continue to serve you better. Please take a few minutes to complete the following anonymous survey.

Take Survey

You can track this error report by clicking the Track this error report link. If you choose to track your error report, you will be notified of resolutions to this problem as they are identified.

Track this error report

To anyone who thinks that their tape backup runs slower after SP1

A tape backup device performs slowly after you install Windows Server 2003 SP1 or hotfix 873422:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=907418

You may be right.......

Got backup issues?

http://blogs.technet.com/edwalt/archive/2006/02/02/418665.aspx

Wayne today happened to post that his home box suddenly could not backup and all his VSS writers vanished.

Ed to the rescuse with that blog post about reregistering the VSS writers to the system.  Too bad there isn't some sort of Live.troubleshooting.com landing page that could somehow reregister this stuff with a click.....

Rotations of Backups

At the MCPmag Handy Andy chat earlier today the conversation came up about tape/disk rotations....and the interesting comments surrounded the number of rotations depended on the clients needs for retaining data.  Many took a special backup once a year, once a quarter or once a month.  Many had a week or multi week rotation.  Many tried to make it so a weeks worth rotated offsite each time.  But it depended on the needs/wants/retention of the data for each client.

Also one person was using the workstations to make backups 'to' so in the office Monday went to 'Fred's' computer, Tuesday went to 'Jane's' and so on.  The problem that I personally had with that setup was that in my own case, we had a burglary and lost a workstation in my office.  I don't want ANY sensitive information AT ALL on the workstations.  Someone asked me about their new setup and how secure was it to have Joe have data on his system and have Jane be able to remotely log into that workstation.  I told him that Joe's sensitive data should be up on the server with the proper NTFS permissions and auditing turned on, it should not be saved on the workstation where all I would need would be physical access to workstation, one freely downloadable NT admin password boot disk and whammo those files are in my possession.

Sometimes the best place to protect things is in one spot, one place, with RAID and backups, and shadow copies, and auditing, and NTFS permissons and all that stuff.

So why do people think you need something special for restoring?

I find some of the comments to my "Drive monkey" posts funny... for one... I personally think that the robustness of USB drives versus tape is tied to whether the server natively supports USB 2.0 or you have a good USB card.  Then comes the follow up question.....

Good feedback here on the tribulations some have using USB HDDs for backup.  My question is:  What is your restore process?  Are you just backing up data and will reload from scratch?  Or, are you using SW that will give you bare metal restores with that USB HDD? (If so, what is it?) Just curious. IMHO, regardless of the medium one uses to backup, it is the restore that really counts.

Since the 2003 platform, the issue of 'bare metal restores' has been mitigated due to the shadow copy.  To all of you who have this question... do me a favor... build a box.  One that you know you won't care about.  Load it.  Back it up with the built in SBS backup program.  Make sure you get that backup verification email in the morning.

Okay?

Now format the drive.

You heard me.  Flatten it.

Okay now read this document on backing up and restoring the system.....

...and while you are restoring the system...check out all the other resources here...

So yeah folks can argue that tools like Paragon Drive imaging is easier, the point is the built in SBS backup is all that is needed for a disaster recovery method.  All you need at a minimum is a hard drive.  Nothing fancy.  Everything else we layer on is just because we are paranoid...or want more confirmation ...or more bells and whistles....or whatever...but all we need for a recovery plan is right in our SBS boxes.

If you are a vap/var and have not flattened a box in the pursuit of trying this out.... what are you waiting for? 

Btw I should point out that the only reason that we CAN do drive imaging of our domain controllers is if you HAVE just a single DC in the domain.  If you have more than one DC, you would NOT want to do this [tombstone/usn restore issues..bottom line icky stuff], so for all those folks who say that we're crazy to have a single domain....sometimes that means we can do stuff that no one else would DARE to so.

So what does your Tape monkey change ...when you don't use tape?

Speaking as the office monkey here... I use Lacie harddrives now and as the 'drive monkey' I swap out the drives by turning off the power and unplugging the usb cable and power cord and swapping the devices out.  This ensures that I don't have that icky "Ghost ...you have no space left" message on the usb drive that isn't there because you didn't properly shut down the USB connection.

There's also another model that I'm trying out this week that can handle a weeks worth of backups on one device [it's a bigger drive] now that does beg the question of the risk of the entire drive going south...there goes a week's worth of backups... but I tell ya.... the harddrive backups have been way less of a bother than my tape backup device.  Say what you guys like about how 'supposedly' fragile harddrives are over the stability and portability of tapes...but I had way more headaches with tape drives than I have with the Lacie's hanging off my USB 2.0 connection on the server.

So?  What your Tape Monkey routine when you are using hard drives to back up?

Yes Virginia, sometimes USB Drives do go bad

So I've been using Lacie harddrives to do my backups and this morning I get the message that the backup failed and in the log file is this:

Verify Status
Operation: Verify After Backup
Active backup destination: File
Active backup destination: G:\Backup Files\Small Business Server Backup (01).bkf

Verify of "C:"
Backup set #1 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 12/6/2005 at 9:00 PM"
Verify started on 12/7/2005 at 12:37 AM.

Error: An inconsistency was encountered in the requested backup file.
Verify completed on 12/7/2005 at 12:41 AM.
Directories: 3549
Files: 44138
Different: 0
Bytes: 6,328,598,216
Time:  4 minutes and  36 seconds

So notice that it's in the verify?  [See, this is why we leave the verify on].  Now remember what it says -- For more information about failed backups, see the article on troubleshooting your backup at the following Web page: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=18414

So I went there, and it says for that error --

Backup fails, reporting "An inconsistency was encountered."

Cause:  You are backing up to a UNC path on the local computer that is currently being backed up.

Solution:  Use the Backup Configuration Wizard to change the destination of the backup to another location. Alternately, you can use the wizard to exclude the UNC path from the backup.

Which doesn't make sense, since it's the same backup routine backing up to a drive letter on the server.  So I start poking around the event logs and find this right around the same time as the failed backup....

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Disk
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    51
Date:        12/7/2005
Time:        12:41:35 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    DOMAIN
Description:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2 during a paging operation.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 ba 00   ..h...º.
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80   ....3..?
0010: 2d 01 00 00 a3 00 00 c0   -...£..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 fe ff ff 1f 00 00 00   .þÿÿ....
0028: 15 a1 65 04 00 00 00 00   .¡e.....
0030: ff ff ff ff 01 00 00 00   ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 84 02 00 00 00   @..?....
0040: 00 20 0a 12 40 03 20 40   . ..@. @
0048: 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00   ........
0050: 00 90 ed ec 40 a3 43 88   .íì@£C?
0058: 00 00 00 00 e0 88 a7 88   ....à?§?
0060: 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff 0f   ....ÿÿÿ.
0068: 28 00 0f ff ff ff 00 00   (..ÿÿÿ..
0070: 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   @.......
0078: 70 00 02 00 00 00 00 0a   p.......
0080: 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00   ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

And of course Disk2 is none other than my Lacie Harddrive when I open up Computer Management.  I don't think my issue is a UNC path. I think one of my first Lacie's is throwing off issues.  I had a  gig USB thumb drive die on me the other day.  I plugged it in and nothin'.  I took it around to like three machines and nothin'.

So I'm going to swap out this Lacie and see what's up.  Based on the error message I'm sure it's not an Exchange corruption, but I don't think it's UNC path either.

But I think I will poke around that health mon and see if I can add a counter to look for Disk warnings on those harddrives.  I have monitoring software for the HP to tell me when it's not optimal, but don't for the Lacie's.

P.S. which reminds me I need to set this backup for earlier in the evening, I normally like to not do things in the midnight to 2 am window [probably an old wives...or geeks tale...but it's my understanding there's maintenance stuff that goes on then so I try to stay outside of that but I had pushed back the backup the night before to do something on the server and forgot to reset it for my normal time.

The importance of System State backup

When you perform a system state backup on a domain controller that is running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, Backup may fail:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909265

The moral of this KB is? 

Don't move the log files.

I haven't seen too many of us hit this...but nevertheless I'm beginning to think that systemstatebackup which is a normal part of the SBS backup...well it wouldn't hurt to do an extra one every now and then.

So why is it important?  Because it's the glue of your network.  The important stuff.  All that active directory stuff that counts.

The restore

Always what comes up is the question of “do you test your restore?”

But how do you test that restore?  The SBS podcast gang make the point of testing the restore... and I'll be flat out honest with you... I've renamed files off my box and restored that, but if you came into my office tomorrow and said “how about we back up that system, erase everything, and we test that restore process” I'd say to you.... “how about let's not.”

As a business owner I would not want you to 'practice' on my box.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't practice a restore process for YOUR home box however on YOUR test network.  But to ask a small business owner that depends on that server to allow you to practice on it?  Not gonna happen.

The best you can do is try [and given that we don't buy boxes in quantities] to get a play server somewhat close to your clients, but that's even asking a lot.  What you can do is take the system state from one box and restore it to a to another box you have at the office.  Or you can practice a restore process on your home system. 

But to ask a business owner if you can back it up, flatten it, and practice a restore?  Boy I'm not sure you could sell that to me even as paranoid as I am.  I won't mind you testing to restore the system state to an alternative location, but you'd better be practicing a restore on another box or your server.  Flatten my baby?  I don't trust you enough to do that.  You do it on your own box and you assure me that you've done the process, and you test my backup by restoring the system state to another system, but flatten mine and do a dry run?  I'll trust in the process rather than risk the disruption.

And we're still arguing the merits of an additional domain controller over a monthly Image [like Paragon's drive image].  Most of us have a member server for the external terminal services box, right?  Okay so we know that having a domain controller also be a terminal services in app mode box is insane.  So now we're going to ask that box to be a TS box 'and” an additional DC as well?  Doesn't that put some additional risks back into our firms that we didn't have before?  Granted in big server land they cannot image a domain controller when there are multiple DCs due to USN rollback issues, but in our single DCs...we can get away with it.  Is simplicity of design better than redundancy? 

See how there's not a 'right answer' for every firm?  We're to the part of computing when we have to throw out the checklists.  You have to look at the risks of each firm and not cookie cutter out the answer for each, I think.

Sit down that owner.  Listen to his pain points.  Solve them.  Fix the processes, don't just shove a tool in there.  And you flatten your box and test.  Not theirs.

Ensuring those foundations are there

When you build a house in California, you pour a concrete slab and then build from there.  When you install a SBS 2003 system you install it on a server.  The foundation.  The slab.  And as long as your foundation is good and solid, you are good to go as well.

On my HP at the office is the HPSmartStart software that helps to make the SBS install easier and installs all the hardware monitoring software.  Yes, the HARDWARE monitoring software. It's checking the condition and status of the RAID array underneath.  So if I drop a drive it will let me know.  My older server has a lovely, so wonderful, screeching sound that the Adaptec card gives off when it drops a drive.

To me I consider hardware raid a normal part of a server install.  You just have a hardware based raid period for a good solid foundation for your network. 

People in the newsgroup have seen us post about SBS 2003 sp1 and they say “gee I depend on this server so I don't want to break it”.  Well, if you depend on it, ensure two things.

1. Good solid server hardware and that includes RAID, and that preferably includes monitoring software that alerts you to issues
2. A good backup, a drive image, something.  Les is raving about Paragon Drive image these days saying that it's worth every penny of the Server price tag [and when “Les is more“ says something is good, he doesn't give that recommendation lightly.  Remember that while the AD guys go pale when we drive image our DC's, because we are a single DC we can get away with it.

So folks... get those foundations in place and you won't worry abou the server breaking.  You'll know proactively when things occur, and you'll have a disaster recovery plan in place should something occur.

Mr. Backup setup Wizard? Can you dump me to a log file please?

So I was rerunning the backupwizard to change to a new storage location here at home and I got this.... An unexpected error occurred (80070057) at the end of the configuration wizard.  Okay, I say, I'll just go find the backup wizard log... where is that again?

So I know that Eriq Neale's blog has the locations..but Mr. Wizard? Can't you just dump be over to this area rather than have me dig for it?

11/12/2005 3:23 PM
c:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\Backup\bkpwizdll.dll, version 5.2.2893.0
NTMS session started successfully.
Call to EnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_LIBRARY) returned ok.
Will enumerate on 4 media libraries found.
Call to GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) returned ok.
Call to GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) returned ok.
Found an enabled library (online or stand-alone).
Call to EnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_MEDIA_TYPE) returned ok.
Will enumerate on 1 media types found.
Call to GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsMediaTypeInfo) returned ok.
Call to GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) returned ok.
Found an enabled library (online or stand-alone).
Call to EnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_MEDIA_TYPE) returned ok.
Will enumerate on 1 media types found.
Call to GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsMediaTypeInfo) returned ok.
Found a tape media type in the library.
No command line switches were provided. Full Wizard run will be performed.
Calling CommitOperator()
Call to CommitOperator() returned ok.
Calling CommitBackupScript()
Call to CommitBackupScript() returned ok.
Calling CommitRetention()
Error 0x80070057 returned from call to CommitRetention().
Backup Wizard finished with error code 0X80070057.

Hmmm.. based on a google it says I might need a hotfix but I think... I think that hotfix is in SP1?  Weird it won't let me modify the mail and file retention.  I have EXACTLY this problem but I don't know the resolution.  I'll keep you posted and post back with a resolution.

I just checked with the office server and I can run the wizard through that section just fine, but not this server.

I'll keep you posted what I find...

btw...this is on the home server where I'm getting ready to swing over to a new server... wouldn't you know it...

How does one move data?

How does one move data from one machine to another? 

A variety of ways...

OEM - Using OEM computers I use the XP file and transfer wizard to transfer settings from one computer to another and then I 'hang' the old drive off the inside of the new system to ensure that in case someone forgot something, I can go back and easily get a copy of that data.

OEM - Imaging - I've used a process of disk or drive imaging to move an exact image of a drive to a larger hard drive.  It doesn't even freak out product activation.

Non OEM - if the speed of the harddrives are the same, [why do I want the same speed?  Because if the newer computer has a faster drive I want to keep the faster drive in a machine and not replace it with a slower one....get it?] I will just image or even just move the harddrives.  If you attempt to just merely swap harddrives between two OEM systems [I was lazy one day... uh... don't do it ... you end up WPA [product activation] freaking out both machines.

Now... all of my critical business stuff is on the server.  All of the gunk that I'm dragging around from desktop to desktop is ...well..it's just gunk... service packs, ISOs, downloads and other crud.  But it's all the stuff I just 'might' need someday ... so I end up dragging it from one computer to another.

So what about you?  How do you migrate the 'stuff' of a high maintenance/packrat kind of a computer user?

So what's your backup plan?

Being the victims of the NTT/Verio shared web hosting meltdown over the last couple of days was a stark reminder of how important it is to have full redundancy at a different location for our very small business. We don't need much and we can't afford much, but we do need a small business server solution that can get us running again in a few hours, not in a few days or weeks when the earthquake hit (assuming that we humans survive, it is fair to assume that the hardware will be destroyed). We've been going around in circles with this and SBS2003. What we really need is the ability to configure and regularly update an exact mirror but on a completely separate machine at some other site, so that if we have to do disaster recovery all we need to do is run a restore of the last data backup. And it should be a

supported solution. It should also be affordable, in line with the size and value of the business. Everything I read on this topic ends up costing many times more than the server and basic SBS2003 license, e.g. set up additional server (each with high license costs, of course, buy enterprise software designed for much bigger operations than ours, etc.). I don't want to resort to stupid pet tricks like trying to one of the Raid 1 discs off to spawn a new Raid on another computer. For one thing, I doubt it would work. Ghosting also doesn't appear to be an option since the activation scheme will prevent the copy from running on the backup system. So, is there a solution (not counting the redundant hardware, of course) that does not involve stupid pet tricks and that costs no more than the original SBS2003 license, say under $500? And that does not require dozens of hours of expensive consulting? Because if there is none, we'll be better off scrapping SBS to go with open

source and paying the consulting fees to someone who can do exactly what we need. Hint to the Microsoft SBS Product team: Here is an opportunity... A

lot of people would be happy to pay twice the SBS2003 license if it supported backup through a redundant offsite machine, with the clear understanding of course that only one can be running as "the" server at any given time.

From the newsgroup today comes that question.....and in light of the Hurricane[s] Katrina, Rita, Wilma, the earthquakes yet to be, I think it's a good time to think about our own disaster plans.

• Cluster - Can we cluster SBS?  No.
• Imaging - Can we Image our domain controller?  Well it's like this.  The been there and done that crowd will tell you that YES you can image your domain controller and get it back up on even different hardware.  But technically, in the Motherships of the Big Server land and even SBSland they will warn you that Imaging a domain controller freaks them out.  The only saving grace as to why we 'can' do it, is because most of the time out here we are not following a best practice [whatever that means] and doing multiple domain controllers.  Because we are most of the time Single DCs, we don't have the USN Rollback issue that our big brother servers have to deal with.  Les recommends Paragon Drive Backup to do a live image.
• Redundant hardware - I do parts.  In fact I need to buy another part since my member server dropped a drive yesterday.  And did we skip a beat?  Not really.  But this time I remembered my lessons from last time and had that drive handy.  One of the guys in the office needs to swap out a harddrive and he's missing a power cable to the drive.  So the lesson here is ...have parts ready to go.
• Have a plan.  If you have SBS on software assurance you can have what's called 'cold server rights' where you can have a second copy of SBS on a second server ready to be fired up and restore the data.  Should it be automagical and a lot easier than it is now? Probably.  But it is an option nonetheless.

Should all this be easier?  More automagical?  I would argue yes, even for the home user and a standalone PC.  Is it going to be as cheap as you want it, or without a bit of expertise.  Not right now anyway.  As the gang in the big server land say when it comes to restoring servers and especially Domain controllers, you want to test this when you are calm and have a checklist, not in a panic when you really need it.

There's a nice checklist here to think about Disasters here. [Yeah I know I hate checklists but sometimes they get you thinking]

Do you backup your CALs?

Do you go inside the Licensing console and backup those CAL licenses?  What?  You don't?  You do realize that if you have to [heaven forbid] rebuild the server, that you will have to call up PSS/Licesnsing and reactivate the CALs.  But if you just take a quick sec to dump out that licensing file to a place on the server, back it up ... say stick it on YOUR server ...say in a Sharepoint database or something.... you can save yourself a lot of hassle.

Back it up.

Mind telling me which one, dear?

So the backup failed last night and I remote in to look at the log file errors....

“Verify of "F:"
Backup set #3 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 9/19/2005 at 7:00 PM"
Verify started on 9/19/2005 at 10:30 PM.

Error: An inconsistency was encountered in the requested backup file.”

Okay... that's nice...mine telling me which file?

Steve Foster posted up in the SBS2k yahoogroups a patched backup script [bkprunner.exe] that excludes the verify command. [the file is in the Yahoo Files section] 

Hmmm.. maybe I might want to try that if I can't figure out what file it doesn't like?

Now the Backup troubleshooting page says

Backup fails, reporting "An inconsistency was encountered."

Cause:  You are backing up to a UNC path on the local computer that is currently being backed up.

Solution:  Use the Backup Configuration Wizard to change the destination of the backup to another location. Alternately, you can use the wizard to exclude the UNC path from the backup.

Merv talked about his backup resetting and including the drive of the backup as well... I wonder if that's what's happened to me? Hmm.... doesn't look like it.  Okay so maybe I'll wack off the backup verification.

Update - also in my log file was a 'bad block on device 2' which of course is the harddrive.  So I flipped that one out and the backup completed perfectly tonight.

Having a lot of log file history

My HP has lots of monitoring that it throws up in the Event logs and in today's monitoring email it told me that my Power supply number 2 kicked on.  Hmmm... so I remoted in and looked for all other instances of Event 4181.  My log files is sized nice and big so I had a history of it for a long long time back to when it was built.  And the history of that.... the last time there was a 4181 event was once in June, and another in February.  Still it's an event that I'll probably call and just make sure that the vendor is on notice. 

Even if I don't take action just now, making sure that the manufacturer is on notice to make sure it gets covered under warranty is key.

See why nice big log files are a good thing?

Event Type: Information
Event Source: cpqasm2
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4181
Date:  8/27/2005
Time:  10:42:26 PM
User:  N/A
Description:
Power supply #2 is now operating correctly.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 02 00 50 00   ......P.
0008: 00 00 00 00 55 10 35 44   ....U.5D
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

A little conversion in order

Backup started on 8/19/2005 at 9:03 PM.
End of Media encountered while backing up to non-removable media.
The operation was ended.
Backup completed on 8/19/2005 at 9:14 PM.

...Oh shoot... I forgot to convert....you see the default way most of these USB harddrives are set up are to do FAT32 drives.  And of course like Sean says.. that ain't gonna cut it on a backup routine.  FAT32 has a limitation ... so 4 gigs later that backup stopped on me.

So at the C: prompt typed in just like the KB says to do

Convert G: /fs:NTFS [G: is the drive letter for my usb harddrive] and then it prompted me for the volume name.  Because the Lacie drives are named already LACIE, you just type that in and voila.  So I reset the backup to autostart... and it should be kicking off in about 1 minute..... and..... there it goes.....

The data everywhere

Once upon a time a guy in the office bought a computer... a computer with a gig of harddrive space. 

HUGE!  What in the world made you buy a harddrive so large?  You'll never use that much space! We said to him...

Fast forward to today....

So today ... in a cell phone...[yes the Audiovox]  I just slid into it's little socket a little mini SD chip that can hold as much as was on that desktop computer not that long ago.

Now as we think nothing of 250 Gig sata drives...what kind of backup do I have on that phone?  Backup for my new home computer?  Backup for any home system worth a darn?

Pop Quiz...when's the last time you truly spent the energy backing up your home system like you do your business ones.  Yet LOOK at the size of the info we are sticking on our home systems and I would argue not backing them up like we should?

So what about you?  You backing up what you need to backup?

Backup backup backup backup backup backup backup oh and I did I say how about checking the backup?

So there you are backing up every night and it's going beautifully.

Uh.. one thing.

Have you checked that backup?  Gordon blogs about the lovely “case of the missing backup”.  Can't we all relate to that tale.  What you thought was working, wasn't?

New Year's resolution folks.

Test the backup.  So ...how do you test it?  The better question is how much time and effort do you want to spend in testing.

• Minimum test - rename one file - restore that one file
• Moderate test - rename a folder - restore the folder
• Mucho giant test - restore the entire server

That last one is a bit extreme for a production network mind you.  Remember the backup and restore documents I pointed to the other day?  I'd say at least do a minimum test or a moderate test.

P.S.  Chad adds one more moderate test -- restore the system state to an alternative location.  ....... you do backup the system state..... right?  :-)

Hey.. nice hack dude!

One day in the blogosphere and Sean Daniel of Seandaniel.com shares his SBS 2003 backup hack.

Very cool!  Thanks Sean!

From today's mailbag... Ron asks about backups

Ron via Yahoo.com writes to “via E-Bitz:” 

“I am looking for a decent solution for backing up a SBS 2003 Server with about 30 GB of user data.  The current Seagate Travan system is both slow and unreliable.  (Lifetime warranty on tapes?  HA!)  Would you suggest that I try the Iomega Rev system or get 2 to 3 USB HD's? 

What do you use?  If you have tried harddrives, have you run into any software difficulties?  I am sure I'm not the only person curious about external drives as backup solution.”

Dear Ron:

You are not alone in looking for a reliable and cheap backup solution.  Tape drive manufacturers HAVE NOT stepped up to the plate in providing reliable and REASONABLY priced tape drives to keep up with the monster drives we are throwing into our servers.  In my own case I wasn't ready to go to a usb harddrive solution and I was anticipating backing up my main server AND a member server so I plunked down 3 grand on a Sony Quad tape loader.  Yup you read that right, $3 thousand smackeroos.  Works wonderfully  [it better at that price].  But it's not your normal SBS backup solution by any means. 

What's the best backup?  One that works.  One that you've tested.  One that the client will remember to change out. 

Do people use usb enclosure harddrives as backup media?  Yup, sure do and they work.

Do people use IOMEGA Rev drives work with SBS?  Per Eliot's tests yes, haven't checked back with him if he's using them a lot [and I need to check for that reg key for Mike  from the newsgroups who can't find it on his system]

As far as the travan drive, you do have the hotfix right? 

Too bad Iomega or some other vendor didn't come up with a “guaranteed to work with SBS” external backup system.  Something like a SBS branded SAN, or a SBS branded Iomega solution.  I mean like aren't we big enough of a marketplace now to start having vendors position themselves to be more plug and play than they are now?  We have HP with SBS and Trend pre-installed now, don't we?

Now before you ask, Ron, I'll ask the question....can DVD's be used as a backup media?  I don't know about you but a “normal” backup of a SBS box... I'm going to doubt that it fits on a DVD, even one with all sorts of compression and junk.  And I just know that on my desktop, cd/dvd rom burning is not a trivial task on this box, it does take resources.

If I didn't have my 200 gig/400 gig compressed Sony quad loader tape drive and I was backing up 30 gigs of data?  I'd probably throw in an usb2/firewire card and go for those usb/firewire harddrives.  I actually have a unit or two around the office just to aid in migrating.

Thanks for writing in Ron.  Keep us posted.  You can find me on the blog or in the newsgroups most days. 

Small Business Server 2003 – Backup and Restore CHAT

Small Business Server 2003 – Backup and Restore
Join experts from the SBS team on June 30th 2004 to discuss tips, techniques, and best practices for SBS backup and restore.

June 30, 2004
2:00 – 3:00 P.M. Pacific time
5:00 – 6:00 P.M. Eastern time
21:00 – 22:00 GMT
Enter Chat Room
http://communities2.microsoft.com/home/chatroom.aspx?siteid=34000015

Backing up Small Business Server 2003

"Cold Server" - SBS Fallover allowed with Software Assurance

Microsoft Grants More Software Assurance Concessions:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1595793,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

Late Wednesday — a little over a month before a number of its customers' 
Software Assurance licensing contracts are set to expire — Microsoft 
acknowledged it has added a couple more Software Assurance concessions 
to its repertoire. 
 As of 
June 1, Microsoft is adding a disaster recovery option, allowing 
customers to maintain a free copy of their Software Assurance server 
products on a "cold server." Also as of June 1, Microsoft is adding 
MapPoint Web Service and Office Live Meeting to the software that can be 
licensed under Software Assurance.

Looking for a potential backup platform in those Iomega REV drives?

While Iomega won't go on record as supporting them, SBS MVPer Eliot has tested them and they will work.....

More information on the REV drives can be found here.

 Eliot writes.....

The Backup Wizard won't write to REV drives b/c IOmega set
them to look like CDs, and the Wizard looks at whatever that attribute
is. NT Backup looks at the drive just fine, though. Since the Wiz
actually configures NT Backup, the best workaround to allow
you to use the Rev with the Wizard is:
 
Use the wizard to configure the backup to a hard drive, then open up
regedit to:

HKLM\software\microsoft\smallbusinessserver\backup and change the key
"Backup Location Path" to the Rev Drive.

Issues with Backup and installing drives for "Generic volume shadow copy"?

All of a sudden after weeks of successful tape backups they are now failing
because SBS2003 tries to install drives for "Generic volume shadow copy".
Each time volume shadow copy is activated either by ntbackup or by the
shared folder volume shadow copies, SBS pops up the found new hardware
balloon and tries to install drivers for "Generic volume shadow copy".  It
then shows the dialog box that the driver has not passed Windows logo
testing and asks if I want to proceed.  If I'm at the console and allow it
to continue, the backup will work fine.  Of course this is not normally the
case so the backups via volume shadow copy fail.

RESOLUTION:

Try renaming C:\Windows\system32\CatRoot2 to 
C:\Windows\system32\CatRoot2.sav and reboot the system.