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    Hi,

    I received the WHS trial disks which I planned to install on a system that's currently a makeshift server running XP Pro. My main motivation is to have a good backup system in place for the various computers on my network.

    I've played with the built in backup applications of Windows Vista and been rather unimpressed. I consider the image backup software not only inadequate, but downright dangerous. In my tests I found that it was unable to restore a backup image even on the exact same hardware if even minor partition table changes have occurred. Even in attempting to recreate the original disk structure, I was unable to get the system to restore. Given that a system restore may be necessary due to hardware failure and thus a new harddrive, likely with a different size and partition structure may be required, there seems to be no guarantee that Vista's imaging software will be able to restore the backup.

    The file-based backup seems to be somewhat better, but is sorely lacking in flexibility to choose what should or shouldn't be backed up and I've read some complaints that non-standard file types may not be backed up.

    So how does WHS's backup software work relative to Vista's? Does WHS backup do system partition imaging or something equivalent for easy restore after catastrophic failure? If so, how tolerant is it for restoring to different partition structures and different hard drives? Will it be able to backup and restore Windows partitions on a Mac running Bootcamp (which uses a hybrid GPT/MBR partition table)?

    What about restoring to completely different hardware? Is this possible? Can I upgrade a machine or replace a dead one and still restore a system backup? This seems to be a particular challenge under Vista.

    Finally, I suspect that large backup (such as the initial backup) and restore jobs will be extremely slow over a wireless network. Is there any way to do the initial backup and restores using removable storage (like a USB harddrive) as an intermediary? Also, how fast is a restore? If I install a program I regret and want to go back to my last backup, how long will that take?

    Sorry for the multitude of questions, but if anyone can provide some insight on these issues it would be very useful.

    Thanks!
    Saturday, October 11, 2008 9:01 PM

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    1. You can restore to a larger partition. Not to a smaller.
    2. The EULA is pretty specific. I happen to agree that it's reasonable to restore to newer hardware, but in general an OEM product really is locked to the exact hardware it came on. Assuming you're restoring to newer hardware, it's technically possible to use Window Home Server to do the restore. However, WHS doesn't even attempt to deal with hardware inconsistencies, etc. So if the Hardware Abstraction Layer changes (HAL) you'll probably bluescreen when you boot, assuming you restore the entire boot partition. In this situation, I actually think you'd be better off using WHS to restore data, but as loose files, because dealing with that level of hardware change is too much for most people, and it's not really a design goal for Windows in general. So you could say I agree with Microsoft to an extent.
    3. Wireless networking is not particularly reliable. That's (unfortunately) pretty much a fact of life. I actually have such a dog (named Fifi) and I've had her wander between me and the WAP and have wireless go away...
      Windows Home Server backs up directly to the server, not to an external drive.
    4. I don't know for certain about encrypted folders in backups.
    5. I expect that Windows Home Server will back up the NTFS partitions. I expect that restoring them would be painful (at best...)
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Sunday, October 12, 2008 11:58 PM
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    Hi,
    The first thing you need to do, is have a read through the documentation, available here, or here, it should explain some of what you want to know.

    WHS uses Single Instance Storage for all info in it's backups, that is, it will only store one instance of anyinformation, no matter where or how many times it is stored, either on one or multiple machines. For example, if you had Vista installed on three Clients, then it would only store the first instance and then just have a'pointer' to the other locations. This is all transparent to the user.
    The restore operation, means booting from the Restore CD, at whichpoint it will contact the server, and let you choose which backup of the ones stored, you wish to have restored. There is a management tool in it, which means you can create the partions. It will not backup or restore a Mac.
    Initial backups, which might be large ones, should always be done by a wired connection, just to reduce the chances of corruption and no, you cannot use an intermediary storage method because of the SIS method. Also, you cannot restore over a wireless connection, there is just far too many complications like security etc.
    As far as speed, it will totally depend on the amount of data!

    Colin






    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.
    Saturday, October 11, 2008 9:19 PM
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    Colin has given you some good information. If you read the Getting Started Guide (available through his second link) and the Home Computer Backup technical brief (likewise) I think you'll have a much better understanding of how WHS backup works. I'm going to address a couple of your specific questions.

    Windows Home Server backup is designed for two scenarios. The first (and main intended use) is the restoration of a computer which has a failed hard drive. The second is a "loose file" restore to a running system. In the first case, you replace the drive with a new one of the same or larger size and restore partition images to it as needed. WHS doesn't offer an easy way to move an image from one computer to another; at a minimum the HAL is likely to change, and there are no tools to make that transition any easier than it would be with any other pure disk imaging method. Your Windows license is probably tied to your physical hardware anyway (read the EULA) so moving the image to completely new hardware would be a technical violation of the license. So to answer your question about upgrading or replacing a dead machine, no you can't easily upgrade, and replacing a dead machine would only work (without a lot of additional effort) if you replace it with a functionally identical model. Even then, you will probably have to reactivate. I won't say that this is by design, per se, but I think it unlikely that Microsoft gave it a lot of consideration given the EULA concerns. :)

    Backing up from Bootcamp: do a search here in the forums. I believe it's possible to back up the disks that your XP guest OS knows about, and that are formatted with NTFS. I don't believe that you'll be able to back up the Mac partitions, though.

    Wireless: Your initial backup should be over a wired connection; it's the largest backup you'll do. After that it's possible to back up wirelessly if you have a solid wireless network (no momentary dropouts because the dog wanders between the laptop and the WAP). An image based restore is unsupporte over a wireless connection. You will only be able to get it to work if you have no wireless security in place; the Home Computer Restore CD won't be able to connect to a secured network.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Sunday, October 12, 2008 1:02 PM
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    Thanks for the info so far.

    I have read the getting started and technical brief on Backup and while they give a general overview of the process they didn't really address some of my specific questions.

    If you don't mind elaborating a bit...

    1.
    In terms of restoring to the same hardware but a new harddrive: assuming the new drive is of the same size or larger are there any issues with restoring to a different partition structure? Can the system disk image be restored to a partition of a different size? Eg. If the original disk dies and is replaced with a larger drive, can I restore the system to a larger partition?

    Also, are there any issues with boot management? One of the most frustrating issues I've encountered with other backup systems when restoring to a new drive is that although the partition gets restored it won't boot. I've tried all the various methods I've read about to try and repair the boot system but in the end I've usually had to install a fresh copy of Windows just to get the drive setup to boot properly, then erase the partition and restore the backup.

    Does WHS restore do a better job with this? Can I plug in a virgin hard drive and have it restore my system partition, possibly to a larger partition, and then just reboot and have everything work as before?

    As I mentioned, I've experimented with the full system backup in Vista and was extremely disappointed to find it was so finicky about restoring to different partition structures, that even restoring to a new, identical model drive, does not seem to be gauranteed to work.

    2.
    In terms of restoring to different hardware, I don't buy this EULA business. If I have a retail copy of Windows I'm allowed to transfer it to new hardware so long as it's removed fromthe old hardware. I'm thinking of the scenario where the computer dies (I've had a bad power supply turn a motherboard into a charred mess, for instance...) and needs to be replaced by a new one. In most cases it makes little sense to try and replace with identical hardware, and in many cases this may be difficult or impossible to do anyway. If the verison of Windows is OEM, then most likely the new hardware will come with its own OEM licence for Windows. So long as the version of Windows are the same, I don't see any problem transfering an image from one machine to another. Yes, it will require a new activation, but this shouldn't be an issue as you will have a valid new licence for the new hardware. In any case, without a valid licence, restoring Vista to new hardware should put it into trial mode and then you can obtain a valid new licence through the update/activation system if necessary.

    So the real question is whether it's technically possible to do. I know various third party backp solutins provide a bare metal restore feature that will allow you to restore to disimmilar hardware. However, the ones I've tried do require you to specifiy this mode prior to backing up so if a normal backup is made it cannot be restored to dissimilar hardware (although a new haddrive/partion is generally not a problem). I take it there is no such facility in WHS?

    Is there ANY way to restore a Vista image to dissimilar hardware? In XP I've found this not to be a problem. You can restore an XP image to new hardware and it won't work, but then you can do an upgrade install using the original XP install CD in place and it will load all the required drivers for the new hardware, but keep all the previously installed applications and most of the settings intact. In Vista, because it uses an image based installation system, this doesn't work. I'm wondering if using WHS or any other aspect of Vista if there is a way to accomplish something similar?

    This probably isn't a deal breaker. So long as all the data is backed up, if a whole system needs to be replaced a fresh Vista install isn't such a big deal. But getting everything set up optimally can take a long time so it would be nice to be able to restore from a previous system.

    3.
    I'm a little concerned about the comments about WiFi backup, especially mention of potential corruption or instable WiFi connections. I would hope that the backup system utilizes some form of verificaiton to insure that backuped up clusters are intact and match those of the backed up system, and if the WiFi drops out that it would be able to continue once it is re-established or else reschedule the backup for a later time when the network is fixed. These seem like pretty basic core requirements for a reliable network backup system. If it can't handle that what's the point?

    As for requiring a wired connection for initial backup and for restores, while I can understand this it does seem quite frustrating. I have 2 desktops upstairs and 2 in the basement, which are connected through a wireless bridge. There are also 2 laptops, usually connected over WiFi. Obviously, wiring the laptops to the WHS is trivial, but moving the server between the 2 sets of desktops will be a pain.

    I was thinking a possibility would be to setup the backups to occur on an external drive enclosure using NAS so that I could just move the enclosure between networks, leaving the server in place. I'm guessing this wouldn't work. I'm not sure if you can backup to a network drive, and without support for secure WiFi the server wouldn't be able to communicate with the NAS.

    What would be nice is if you could backup to a local VHD file on a portable drive, then move the drive to the server for incorporating the virtual drive into the backup database. Likewise, for restoring, you could have the server create a VHD of a backed up partition, then restore off the VHD locally on the remote machine. This would solve the issue of backing up and restoring large amounts of data, while normal daily incremental backups could be performed over Wifi. I don'tsuppose there are any 3rd party addins or future plans to incorporate this type of functionality?

    4.
    I forgot to ask before, but one of the issues I've encountered with other backup applications is an inability to backup encrypted folders. Is there any issue with this in WHS?

    5.
    I have a Macbook Pro as I received it from work. For the most part, I just run Vista on it. I've tried OS X since I had the opportunity, but overall I don't really get the religious adoration people have for it. It's a perfectly nice OS, but I don't see it as particularly all that different from Windows. I don't expect wHS to backup the mac partition, but some backup applications are not able to backup the NTFS partitions as they have issues with the unusual hybrid partition system the Mac uses for Bootcamp. It would be nice if WHS is able to backup and restore to the NTFS partition, especially if it can do so to a different size partition so it can be expanded if necessary. This is something most backup applications have a hard time doing on a Bootcamp formatted drive.

    I have to say, the one thing that did particularly impress me about OS X is Time Machine. I'm particularly interested in WHS because it seems like it's a very similar concept. However, the fact that it operates at the network level rather than on an individual machine adds a lot of extra complexity. On the one hand, this is good in terms of consolidating data across multiple machines. But it leads to these issues with remote systems connected over WiFi. I'd almost prefer a local backup service running on each machine. Or maybe the answer is to have 2 WHS servers, one for each bank of machines. However, that's starting to get expensive...

    Thanks!
    Sunday, October 12, 2008 7:01 PM
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    Hello,
    1.
    If the target partition is larger, restore will work.
    If the system will boot or not, depends from the partitions. If there was a hidden vendor made partition the first partition on the system, this partition will not be backed up. Therefore the boot process will not work without manual interception - for Windows XP altering the boot.ini manually (which is also offered after completing the Restore process), for Windows Vista you could use the Computer Startup repair offered if you boot from the Vista DVD.
    2.
    Technically you can restore to different hardware, but if HAL and storage drivers are different, booting may fail with BSOD 0x7B.
    Sometimes it may be enough to enable the AHCI drivers in the registry of the not booting Vista, which can be done by editing the registry from the Command prompt in the Computer Repair options.
    Product activation will kick in of restoring to different hardware.
    3.
    WiFi connections are possible to be used for backup, but not for restore. But be aware, that WLAN connections are often not stable and reliable enough and the bandwidth is low, especially if there are walls between.
    4.
    http://social.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/6c92f8a7-046b-40b3-b57a-996ba222d1d9
    gives the answer.
    5.
    Sorry. no experience with Mac. Maybe this thread enlights you:
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/28034527-73d4-47c5-af82-d33fa59b13b7

    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Sunday, October 12, 2008 8:13 PM
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    1. You can restore to a larger partition. Not to a smaller.
    2. The EULA is pretty specific. I happen to agree that it's reasonable to restore to newer hardware, but in general an OEM product really is locked to the exact hardware it came on. Assuming you're restoring to newer hardware, it's technically possible to use Window Home Server to do the restore. However, WHS doesn't even attempt to deal with hardware inconsistencies, etc. So if the Hardware Abstraction Layer changes (HAL) you'll probably bluescreen when you boot, assuming you restore the entire boot partition. In this situation, I actually think you'd be better off using WHS to restore data, but as loose files, because dealing with that level of hardware change is too much for most people, and it's not really a design goal for Windows in general. So you could say I agree with Microsoft to an extent.
    3. Wireless networking is not particularly reliable. That's (unfortunately) pretty much a fact of life. I actually have such a dog (named Fifi) and I've had her wander between me and the WAP and have wireless go away...
      Windows Home Server backs up directly to the server, not to an external drive.
    4. I don't know for certain about encrypted folders in backups.
    5. I expect that Windows Home Server will back up the NTFS partitions. I expect that restoring them would be painful (at best...)
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Sunday, October 12, 2008 11:58 PM
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    Ken Warren said:

    1. You can restore to a larger partition. Not to a smaller.
    Ugh.

    My Seagate 500 GB SATA drive failed recently in my client PC. Fortunately, I had an up-to-date Client PC backup on my WHS. I had been using only about 150 GB of the drive.

    The drive was still under warranty, so Seagate began the process of sending me a refurbished drive as a replacement. Even with the quickest shipping method, however, it was going to take over a week until I received the replacement drive.

    I had a spare Western Digital 1 TB SATA drive and therefore decided to use that drive as an interim replacement--or so I thought.

    I installed the 1 TB drive and then restored my most recent Client PC backup from my WHS (using the PC Restore Disc). I had been using this drive for the last 10 days. (It's a good thing that I took this route, since--two days later--my WHS backup database became corrupt and I lost all of my Client PC backups! See my thread on this.)

    I received the replacement 500 GB SATA drive from Seagate today. I used another PC to run an extensive check of the physical drive; it passed.

    I removed the 1 TB interim drive, installed the replacement 500 GB SATA drive, and attempted to do a restore using the PC Restore Disc. Unfortunately, the Restore Wizard interface wouldn't let me restore to a smaller drive--even though I'm using (and the Client PC backup size is) only about 150 GB! The interface provided no explanation as to what the issue might be. It just simply wouldn't let me proceed. I tried various options in the Disk Manager tool, without success.

    I removed the replacement 500 GB drive and re-installed the 1 TB drive. That's where I'm at now. Suspecting this might be a poorly-designed system limitation, I searched the forums and found this thread.

    What are my options? Short of performing a complete OS and application install on the 500 GB replacement drive, am I stuck with having to use the 1 TB drive in this client PC?
    Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:11 AM
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    How about if you can get both drives into the case and then use WD Data Lifeguard tools to transfer the 1TB to the 500Gig.  Then you could re-run the WHS backup and it would think its a small drive again???  Haven't tried this, just suggesting.
    Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:55 AM
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    You can use a third party tool like Acronis TrueImage to ghost the drive over to the 500 GB. You will probably have to go through backup configuration on the machine again; it's likely that your server will be reporting the current drives as "missing" and the resized (smaller) drives as being present.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, October 15, 2008 11:42 AM
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    First thanks for the info you guys have provided already. I think I'll go ahead and try out WHS. Moving the tower running WHS back and forth shouldn't be that much of a pain now that I think about it, since it will be running headless. I noticed that the documenation days installation on laptops is not supported. I actually think a laptop would be a good environment, since it's small and portable. An old laptop would have plenty of horsepower and with a 1 TB external drive on firewire or eSata storage shouldn't be an issue.

    Another question I had is under vista, if you right click on a file and bring up the older versions list, will that include all the older copies that were backed up onto WHS?

    As for restoring to different hardware, is there any way in Vista to do the equivalent of installing XP on top of itself as a way to update all the relevant hardware drivers for the new hardware? Can you do an in place upgrade of Vista or otherwise boot into a Vista setup disc and force it to redetect and install the relevant hardware drivers?

    As for the problem the other poster has described:
    The fact that the backup database can get corrupted is scary. I haven't read the other thread yet so I don't know the details, but I hope this is not a common occurance.

    When you restored onto the new 1 TB drive, did you restore into a 1 TB partition, or did you set up a 500 GB partition and restore into that? If you restored into a TB partition at least I can understand why it wouldn't want to go back, but if you restored into a 500 GB partition on a larger drive, I would expect it to be able to restore back onto a 500 GB partition on a 500 GB drive.

    Can you not restore from an older backup made before you restored into 1 TB drive? Or were those lost due to the corruption issue.

    As noted, there are third party applications that will let you transfer or restore onto a smaller partition if there is enough space. But why isn't this feature built into WHS? Similarly, if it's true you may have to use the boot repair feature of the vista install disc when restoring to a new drive, why isn't that just built into the restore function of WHS itself? These seem like rather obvious features to include which would make life easier, especially for those less tech savy. Microsoft came so close with this product, but it seems like it still needs a lot of refinement.
    Wednesday, October 15, 2008 5:58 PM
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    Magritte said:

    I noticed that the documenation days installation on laptops is not supported. I actually think a laptop would be a good environment, since it's small and portable. An old laptop would have plenty of horsepower and with a 1 TB external drive on firewire or eSata storage shouldn't be an issue.

    Laptops are thermally challenged. When running a server OS they tend to overheat. Thermal management is better than it was, but laptops will throttle performance in a number of areas when this occurs.

    Backup database: It's not common for it to get corrupted, in general. Most users will never have a corrupt backup database. Those users that do experience corruption seem to experience it over and over again, which suggests an environmental influence. As for whether it's scary or not, that depends on how you use backups. Personally, I have never restored from a backup that was older than "last backup that worked". I don't even try to use backups as archival storage; there's too much that can go wrong with that plan. So if you take my approach, if your backup database gets corrupted it's only an issue until you can back all your PCs up again. If you plan to use the backup database for archival storage, it's more of a concern.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, October 15, 2008 7:19 PM
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