I thought I would start up a thread on restoring a local/remote NT 4/2000
server hosting a number of vital services. The version of BE I am using is
v8.6 rev 3878.

In order to be prepare for the worst case I thought it sensible building
myself a test NT4 Server with Exchange 5.5, SQL 7.0, IIS4, SMS 2.0, WINS,
DNS and proxy server all running. That way I can observe the ease at which
each service can be brought back up.

The Server was setup with a 4 GB system partition. The backup was run
remotely using a DDS2 drive from another NT 4 server.

The server being backed up had the remote agent installed but the OFO was
left out in this case was set up in such a way as to backup the entire c:\
drive inclusive of a:
FULL BACKUP OF Exchange directory store
FULL BACKUP OF Information store

FULL BACKUP OF All SQL database excluding file groups.

The backup completed 100% successfully.

The IDR restore was carried out by replacing the HD in the server. The IDR
diskettes and NT server CD were used on the remote server a per normal.
Custom Setup was chosen and the OS installed to a 2GB FAT partition to allow
the DRPrep Wizard to run on reboot. After 2 more reboots the IDR Wizard
started up and the remote media device detected after installing MS
Networking a supply the wizard with a temp IP address on the same subnet.
The restoration of the media set for the C drive was started and left
running. This also completed successfully.

On reboot the server loaded Windows NT Server. I logged on and hey presto
the event log came up with an error or two. Exchange 5.5 had failed to
start, along with IIS and SQL. Taking one thing at a time. I checked to see
if the priv and pub edb were where they should be and low and behold they
weren't so I decided to restore the exchange IS and DS from the media server
again along with the SQL databases also missing from their folder. The
restoration for the exchange databases went OK according to the BE log
however the restore job ended with a failure

================================================== ====================
Job Operation - Restore
================================================== ====================
Unable to attach to NT4SRV_BDC.
The item was not found.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Going back to the server I started the exchange services and hey presto they
started. Good to know as the production servers we're running were using the
OFO which was in effect backing up the store twice taking up space on the
tape.

Going back to the SQL databases, I tried restoring the databases many times
but to no avail, there was just no connection so I decided to remove SQL and
reinstall it with defaults. This time the restore worked but with errors.
See below. I noticed that the log said the server had to be in the single
user mode to do a restore however when I stopped all the SQL services and
started SQLSERVR.exe -m as suggested BE couldn't once more connect to SQL to
initiate the restore procedure. Strangely enough the SMS application
appeared to be able to read the SQL database despite the errors though I'm
not convinced by the error log. I was hoping that the restoration of SQL was
as straight forward as the Exchange restore i.e. a mere matter of
re-starting a service (Though I did however found it strange that the
Exchange database restored OK when communication to it is supposedly not
possible when its services are stopped ?), none of this scratching my head
reinstalling SQL and trying to connect to it in single user mode. If that is
the case there is no point buying the SQL agent, may as well schedule a file
back using the scheduler within SQL.

Can anyone throw some light on this matter and/or any other restoration
tips/techniques when trying to restore a particular NT service ?

By the way the WINS database remains unbacked up without the OFO installed.
Installing it allows for it to be backed up. As for IIS there is a specific
KB article on how to ensure it is backed up and what procedures you need to
follow in order to get it to start up after a system restore.
http://support.microsoft.com/directo...;EN-US;q240941
http://support.microsoft.com/directo...;en-us;Q234429

Thanks in advance

foxpro728@hotmail.com


Job Operation - Restore
================================================== ====================
Remote Backup Exec components detected, version (8.60.3878.0).
Restoring data to NT4SRV_BDC .

An error occurred on a query to database master.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
SQL Server returned the following error message:

RESTORE DATABASE must be used in single user mode when trying to restore the
master database.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Restore completed on 24/12/01 at 22:45:37 .
Restored 5 database(s)
1 item was skipped.


Processed 27,363,285 bytes in 47 seconds.
Throughput rate: 33.3 MB/min
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Consistency checking SMS_SMS
Consistency Check including Indexes.
There was a problem running the DBCC.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
SQL Server returned the following error message:

Table Corrupt: Object ID 386100416 (object 'Summarizer_ComponentTallys')
does not match between 'SYSREFERENCES' and 'SYSCOLUMNS.'.


^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Consistency checking pubs
Consistency Check including Indexes.
Consistency check was completed.

Consistency checking Northwind
Consistency Check including Indexes.
Consistency check was completed.

Consistency checking msdb
Consistency Check including Indexes.
Consistency check was completed.

Consistency checking model
Consistency Check including Indexes.
Consistency check was completed.


================================================== ====================
Job ended: 24 December 2001 at 22:45:48
Job completion status: Failed