What to do after death of Windows 2003 Server

**stubbyd** · 2012-01-30 18:05

Preamble - I support my local church network and server setup. Primarily I aw a network & firewall person. However I do know enough about Windows Server to maintain it - but certainly not the ins & outs of it all.

Problem: In a nutshell they have ignored my advice / warnings to get a secondary DC and today their one and only server fialed big time. It would appear the motherboard is cooked.

No problems thought I - the sata HDD's are raid'ed in a mirror config and we take regualr backups.

However I can't seem to take one of the SATA HDD's and transplant to a.n.other PC. If I do the PC recognises the drive and starts to load and then before anything is shown it reboots. Having tried on a much older PC (and consequently slower) I spot that it is actually BSOD'ing just prior to the reboot.

However 2 is that I can't then boot of the Win2003 Server CD to try a recovery / fix / whatever.

Advice please? And please (if anyone is awake) fairly fast so I can get them back up and running.

Addendum: I have an external sata caddy and am currently doing an additional data backup so that if I have to re-format and start again then so be it. But even if so, how do I get the PC to boot off the W2k3 server CD without constantly re-booting?

Tag

**Paul T** · 2012-01-31 01:31

Windows is very fussy about it's disk controllers and the replacement machine has a different controller, so Windows chucks a wobbly.
Is the backup an image backup? If so you may be able to do a bare metal restore to another machine.
Did you do a "system State" backup of the DC? If so you may be able to build a new DC and perform an authoritative restore.
Unless you can find identical hardware, reusing the original disk won't work.

cheers, Paul

**stubbyd** · 2012-01-31 11:31

Thanks Paul .... I was too tired to come back here last night and to be honest I was probably too tired to come on and ask in the first place.

However, it dawned on me that it was likely down to the mobo sata driver throwing a wobbly. Anyway, a new day has dawned and I've given them the lowdown which is that it will need to be rebuilt. And thankfully on to new hardware as we have found a cracking deal that will allow them to purchase two identical machines so that when / if this occurs down the line we have a spare to implant the DC drives to.

So a bit of work ahead of me, but we've also decided to build afresh and not worry with the system state authoritative restore (yes, we have done system state backups) because it gives us the chance to change the internal domain name to stop it conflicting with the website domain name they now own - if you look at my older posts one of them is asking about just that

So again thanks for the reply but I guess panic over - even though I didn't panic!

**Paul T** · 2012-02-02 11:28

If it's 2003 you should be able to change the domain name on the fly. Save re-creating users etc.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/dat...ontrollers/176

cheers, Paul

p.s. Having spare hardware is pointless, buy a backup program that lets you do bare metal restore, or put the whole thing on a virtual platform and just copy the image out every now and then.

**stubbyd** · 2012-02-02 11:48

Thanks for the link - though I had seen that before and we did try that. It didn't work.

As to spare hardware - well I disagree. Initially I see several benefits including offloading some of the tasks & having a secondary DC being but two of them. As they are getting two for the cost of one then it isn't pointless and it isn't a waste of money.

**Paul T** · 2012-02-02 12:27

If you are installing a second DC then it's definitely worthwhile. 2 DCs is always the answer.

cheers, Paul

**stubbyd** · 2012-02-02 12:30

Indeed and thank you again Paul.

Thread: What to do after death of Windows 2003 Server

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