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    Hello:

    I read every post I could find on Ghosting a WHS drive but did not find an answer to my specific  question.  My WHS server only has a 1-TB C: drive.. (No RAID or "D" Drive).  Has anyone successfully used a "full disk" copy program to duplicate the entire WHS drive.  I don't want to install Norton Ghost 15 (WHS is not even listed as a supported operating system) It seems you would need to:

    (1) Shut down WHS

    (2) Boot from a CD on the WHS server.  The CD would have a minimal OS to run the copy program.

    (3) Plug in a "D" drive

    (4) Copy the "C" drive to the "D" drive

    (5) Power off the system

    (6) Remove the D drive

    (7) Start up WHS (the WHS operating system never knew what happened)

    Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    Rich Locus

    Logicwurks, LLC

     

    Friday, October 15, 2010 5:28 PM

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    Cloning a Windows Home Server system drive is possible but unsupported, and if the process is not executed correctly, you will find yourself in a place where you need to either perform a server recovery or (more likely) go through your storage drives one by one to recover data manually. (A failed cloning attempt will likely preclude further tries.) So I don't recommend you proceed.

    That said, you will find a blog post here which will help. If you have problems, you'll find a (sketchy) discussion of server recovery here, and a description of manual disaster recovery here.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Marked as answer by RichLocus Friday, October 15, 2010 5:46 PM
    Friday, October 15, 2010 5:37 PM
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    Cloning a Windows Home Server system drive is possible but unsupported, and if the process is not executed correctly, you will find yourself in a place where you need to either perform a server recovery or (more likely) go through your storage drives one by one to recover data manually. (A failed cloning attempt will likely preclude further tries.) So I don't recommend you proceed.

    That said, you will find a blog post here which will help. If you have problems, you'll find a (sketchy) discussion of server recovery here, and a description of manual disaster recovery here.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Marked as answer by RichLocus Friday, October 15, 2010 5:46 PM
    Friday, October 15, 2010 5:37 PM
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    Thanks, Ken!

    It seems funny that WHS is such a different animal as far as ghosting.  I have ghosted other non-server drives with no issues (XP, Vista, etc).  Strange!!!

    Rich Locus

    Logicwurks, LLC

     

    Friday, October 15, 2010 5:47 PM
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    There's information about each drive in your server (storage pool, system, or backup) in the registry, above and beyond the information the OS keeps. That additional information has to be kept properly synchronized with the drives, or you will have problems. Thus my dire warnings.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Friday, October 15, 2010 5:54 PM
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    Ken:

    I contacted Western Digital (the people that make my WHS C: drive) and they offered a suggestion.  Please poke holes in it if you know of some secret pitfall:

    Here's what they suggested for a 'fool proof' clone.  (The only way I can see this failing is if I had to revert to an earlier clone, and there is some kind of synchronization between the Server and each workstation that would no longer be in sync like you mentioned in your previous communication).

    (1) Download the Western Digital cloning software (Acronis for Western Digital) which can be downloaded from their site.

    (2) Don't install it on WHS, because they don't support Server 2003 or WHS server.

    (3) Instead, install it on Windows 7 system that has a Western Digital Drive and a DVD burner.

    (4) Create an Acronis Boot DVD  on the Windows 7 system that has the cloning software

    (5) Shut down WHS

    (6) Plug in an internal second hard drive with exactly the same sector configuration as the WHS drive

    (7) Boot the WHS server from the DVD (so it is actually running a Windows 7 shell - NOT running WHS)

    (8) Choose the "Clone Disk" option from the menu

    (9) When you give the OK to start, it will copy EVERY SECTOR exactly as it is on the WHS system disk (it copies all partitions and boot info on the disk)

    (10) When the clone is complete, shut down the WHS server which is running the Windows 7 shell.

    (11) Unplug the cloned disk (so as not to confuse WHS with a new hard drive)

    (12) Start WHS in the usual manner

    Ken, what do you think about this?  It seems to have merit because you are doing a "hardware level" clone without having WHS running at the time.  However, as you mentioned previously, if there is some kind of synchronization that will be lost between the Server and each workstation if an older backup is used, then it's an issue).

    Regards,

    Rich Locus

     

     

    Saturday, October 16, 2010 12:27 AM
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    So, I have an issue...

     

    In an effort to get more space, I simply ghosted my main drive to a higher capacity drive.  Everything appeared to be OK until I noticed that my Backup service was no longer running...  When I began to check into it, I noticed that my old storage capacity was still listed under "Server Storage" and had a state of "missing."  I had a listing for my new capacity (under "Server Storage") with a state of "unknown."  What I was told to do by the help was to remove the old listing and add the new listing.  However, doing that started formatting my data drive!!!!  Well, I have a re-ghost in my future...

    Anyway, I guess what I am asking is this...  How can I ghost my entire WHS installation from one drive to another to increase my capacity?  It's almost like WHS is signing the drive or something, so when the capacities don't match, it assumes it's a new drive...

     

     

    Saturday, May 7, 2011 11:57 PM