How to backup the entire DX4000 operating system and restore the backup of the system in another DX4000?

How to backup the entire DX4000 operating system and restore the backup of the system in another DX4000?

I know that WSB does not support backups greater than 2TB, but after I can manually copy the data of the D drive, the capacity of its occupies is much lower than 2TB.

I have tried to use WSB to back up the DX4000 C drive, and it is prompted to find the available backup when the DX4000 recovers iOS to recover from the backup recovery.
(Specific operation: Select recovery method-from backup restore server-server recovery cannot retrieve the backup list from the backup disk. Error code: 0x80780001)

Is there any good way to back up the operating system of the server and restore the bare metal to another DX4000 server. Because I want to ensure that the software installed in the previous server operating system and the computer in the computer list in the dashboard can continue to be connected to the server. (I have multiple DX4000 servers)

Because, as far as I know, if you use a completely reinstalled system of another DX4000 server, the previous computer will need to uninstall and reinstall the connector software. In this way, the early backup will be lost and everything will be restarted.

I want to know that in addition to backup the operating system of the server, what other methods can be used to reinstall the server system and can continue to use the previous client’s backup and the client does not need to reinstall the connector software. Configuration.

In addition, there is another question:
Since the original server uses 3TBX2 and RAID1 configuration, after extending a larger hard disk, it can only get 3TBX4, RAID5 configuration (12-3TB) instead of the 4TBX4 (16-4TB) of the large hard disk itself. Except for re -creation of the storage pool, is there any other way to expand it without damage operation under the Windows desktop?
(I remember that someone mentioned that I could install the Intel RST drive for a desktop -based RAID management, but I haven’t tried it.)

If you can get help, you will be grateful!
Tony.

The recovery concept when this was built was to simply take your working drives out of a bad box and reinsert them into a working box.

You have not said why you want to move from one working box to another?

As you have discovered, wsb and the recovery process looks for a full image backup which you can not do because it is larger than 2tb.

I think it is time to move away from this obsolete box and operating system. Microsoft discontinued all forms of client backup in the newer OS’s years ago.

Synology has a 2 bay DS 220+ that had client backups and the Bare metal restores are much faster. They have many other units with more bays if desired.

Thank you very much for your timely and enthusiastic help!

The reason for returning to another server is because of the test. If the test encounters an unpredictable damage, how to restore the image of the current server operating system to another similar server.
(This problem has been troubled for many years, and I have tried it in previous years. The backup of the third party cannot be carried out by Headless Restore. It has not made more troublesome attempts, such as using similar data recovery to establish a RAID band in the current server. , And create a disk image, then use another four hard disks to create a storage pool at DX4000, and then use data recovery to reconstruct these four hard disks and restore the previously backup disk image to be installed into the server.)

However, I remember that I only backup the C drive itself of the DX4000, not the entire server, and the external backup hard disk capacity used was less than 2TB, but it still reminded the "Server Recovery Cannot Retrieve the back, Backup Disk. Eric Code. ERROR CODE. : 0x80780001 ". I will try this operation again a long time ago.

Thank you very much for the other solutions you provided. Indeed, there are many other products that are better. However, some computers here depend on the system built a long time ago and have to continue to use this DX4000.

Another question:
After the client operating system running Windows 10 is upgraded, the DX4000 server cannot find a computer.

After investigation, it was found that after a major system was upgraded, how can the system version number change the same as the reinstallation system?

For example, the current version number of Win10 is 20H1. After upgrading to 21H2, the DX4000 server cannot find the computer (the Dashboard computer list displays gray off). Unless uninstalled the connector software in the current client and reinstall the connector software, the server adds a new computer to the list, and it cannot be used.

Is there a better solution, without uninstalling the current connector software.

thank you very much!

I have another assumption. If the “Client Computer Backups” folder manually, can the backup of this folder be recognized by the server that runs the same operating system and restore it to the client? Or is there a way to use the data of this backup folder to restore the client, because these backups seem to be encrypted files, and need to be associated to the server computer list to use it directly.

when you reinstall the connector it should tell you a computer with this name already exists.

The recovery process only looks for a full system backup. It will not like a backup of just c:\

I really do not see what the issue is of just starting new on the other box. You will still have the old box if you need to connect to it for something old. But yes you will have to uninstall/reinstall the connector everywhere.

You will find more ideas if you search for whs 2011 it is the same thing. it just did not allow over 10 computers and did not have the domain join option.

I will post a link at the bottom you can look at. Alex wrote a backup for whs v1 as wsb did not work.

I also had an idea you get get one of the docks that do disk duplication then you could use diskmgmt to expand the d: partition to use the new space. but you will still be stuck with a 60gb c: Though that may not work with the raid. May need to try the rst tools first

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=12219

Thank you very much for your thinking. I will go further.

I want to know that the size limit of the VHD file created by WSB is 2TB, but when the total amount of my server file is only a few hundred GB, even if the server storage volume is 4TB, the VHD file volume does not reach 2TB, and it cannot be successfully recovered successfully Is it?
(Because when I did an experiment, the volume of WSB’s entire backup of the C drive+D drive was only 30GB, but I found that I could not recover, and I remember that my hard disk physical sector was 512KB and it was not 4KB.)

if you will open diskmgt.msc and look at the size of the disk. It does not matter how much is used, the size of the disk must be less than 2tb

This is not from a dx just showing you where to look

Thanks, all the doubts I encountered before have answers.

If there are other, I will post for help.

Well this guy says I may be wrong. He implies if you can shrink d: to be less than 2tb it will work

OKAY, but I also tried to create the entire server with 1TBX2 RAID 1 before (by modifying the white list file), and you can successfully complete the backup, but when you try to recover with the system, you may not find a backup to back up the disk from the backup disk Search for backup lists, do not know why.

What is the difference between VSS FULL Backup and VSS Copy Backup?

If you have built a 2tb test box you can do a full wsb backup. You will have to search diff in full vs VSS. I forget, but do not think it maters
I also forget (I am old) you can press something like ctrl-shft-F10 when you are in the recovery environment or shft-F10 to get a command prompt and you can use perhaps dispart to make sure it sees your usb drive

I am assuming you are using the WD recovery iso and doing the create, then recover. In recover you have the option to get a backup.

Your other option is to simply do a full restore in the new DX from you backup. Do a straight recovery to the DX then do a restore. Try it straight away and see what happens. If not you may have to get to the same patch level as was the backup.

As well the drives that would work with WSB are pretty much obsolete. But if you have an old drive that is working I guess that is not the problem.

I used to make these. Check out Backup Box By Gramps - YouTube

actually doing a recovery from a live running 2008r2 may give you more visibility as to what is going on

Thank you, you are really patient!

In the near future, I will try to build a variety of DX4000 platform models for testing, and ensure the same system and firmware.
I will also try to use the thinking of you to provide you again to select WSB (try to exclude the problems caused by compatibility) in the system recovery disk state, and after the system is installed Backup recovery, use these two methods to see what results will be.

Yes, as you said, this is all outdated hardware and host. I hope that these devices will be offline as soon as possible, and no longer take time consumption to maintain them. This unconventional server does not display the headless system restoration without displaying the device. It is really inconvenient and does not want to weld it for a VGA socket.

The tests performed a few years ago, the problems encountered are as mentioned here.

Hahaha :joy: