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Can a 2 drive client be restored to a 1 drive replacement client? RRS feed

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    I am planning on setting up a WHS machine.  One of my client machines has two disks.  If this machine failed:

    1) will WHS allow me to rebuild on/restore to a replacement machine?

    2) can I restore both drives of the backup to a single drive on the replacement or does the configuration need to be the same?

    Thanks
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 12:11 PM

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    The Windows Home Server backup feature is designed to do a "bare metal restore" to identical hardware, i.e. the same or hardware compatible storage controllers, network, motherboard, processor, memory, etc. So the generic answer to your first question is no, Windows Home Server can't do this. There are ways around this limitation, such as replacing HAL.DLL, repair installation of the original OS, etc., but it's not for the faint of heart. The recommendation if you need to move to new hardware is to install a fresh copy of the OS and only restore data from the old machine, using the single file restore mode.

    Regarding restoring to a single drive, the rule of thumb with Windows Home Server is that, when restoring a partition using the bare metal restore method, you will need the new partition to be at least the same size as the original partition. So to restore to a single disk, you would need one disk at least as large as both of the original disks combined.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 2:52 PM
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    The Windows Home Server backup feature is designed to do a "bare metal restore" to identical hardware, i.e. the same or hardware compatible storage controllers, network, motherboard, processor, memory, etc. So the generic answer to your first question is no, Windows Home Server can't do this. There are ways around this limitation, such as replacing HAL.DLL, repair installation of the original OS, etc., but it's not for the faint of heart. The recommendation if you need to move to new hardware is to install a fresh copy of the OS and only restore data from the old machine, using the single file restore mode.

    Regarding restoring to a single drive, the rule of thumb with Windows Home Server is that, when restoring a partition using the bare metal restore method, you will need the new partition to be at least the same size as the original partition. So to restore to a single disk, you would need one disk at least as large as both of the original disks combined.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 2:52 PM
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    Ken,
      So, machine failure isn't really supported.  That is a way different task than simply disk backup.

      But, is it true that individual files and (hopefully) folders can be recovered from any client?

    -- Chris
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 4:19 PM
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    Complete machine failure of the "My power supply went, and let the magic smoke out of all the capacitors on the motherboard!!" sort is not supported, no. The most common cause of data loss in the home (and when you get right down to it, nothing other than the data really matters) is hard drive failure, though, and Windows Home Server does a stellar job of protecting against that.

    And yes, files and folders can be recovered from any client that has the connector installed.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 6:02 PM
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    Complete machine failure of the "My power supply went, and let the magic smoke out of all the capacitors on the motherboard!!" sort is not supported, no. The most common cause of data loss in the home (and when you get right down to it, nothing other than the data really matters) is hard drive failure, though, and Windows Home Server does a stellar job of protecting against that.

    And yes, files and folders can be recovered from any client that has the connector installed.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)

    In addition to what Ken said, WHS is good at rolling back to a "last known good state" when you get infected with a virus as well.
    Thursday, June 4, 2009 12:01 AM
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    For an example.... My Vista Ultimate x64 system has been backed up by my WHS for quite a while.  I took the same hardware, wiped the drives and installed Windows 7 RC x64. 

    Installed the Connector Software, and then opened the backup of the Vista system from the WHS console on the Windows 7 system to get my favorites and other data. 

    Its a nice system for home backup,  and just as a test, I installed XP in Virutal PC, installed the Connector Software, rebooted the VM. Did a manual backup.  Shutdown the VM, DELETED the VHD. Created a new one. Started the VM with the Recovery CD and restored the backup in about 20 min.  

    Tuesday, June 9, 2009 4:58 PM