migrating SBS Server

I have a customer who is using TI V on his SBS2003 server. I am about to repalce his server with a new faster peice of equipment. My plan was to take his image and restore it to new server offline, then run a repair load on the server to account for any hardware changes, then finally restore only the data parts of the image from the very latest backup on the weekend.

The problem arose last night when I tried to restore the image to the new server in that when booting the server with the Acronis boot CD it could only find my external USB drive (Where the image is stored) but could not see the new hard drives (Sata Raid 1).

Obviously it is a driver issue with the Acronis boot cd.

How do I reslove this issue?

Given that the current server has two partiions (small C: large D, I thought perhaps I could install an IDE drive of sufficient capacity in the new server and restore to it, do my repair load and given that the SATA raid drives are already there at that point , drivers would be installed to handle the SATA drives. I would then image that IDE drive over the new sata drive and then remove the ide drive. As the new server is the latest Dell power edge I have some doubts that even a repair load will install the correct drivers.

Would this work or has someone got a cleaner solution for me?

 

You really are going about things the wrong way. Expecting the ATI boot disk to have the appropriate RAID drivers isn't realistic, and even if you did manage to get things restored to the new hardware and overcome all the issues of different hardware - not a viable prospect with SBS, I suggest - you would then not be able at any time to have both your old and new servers on the same subnet. The downtime for your users would be considerable while you try and get data migrated across, for a start.

There is an industry accepted way of performing this task, called Swing Migration. Go to Jeff Middleton's site at http://www.sbsmigration.com. Jeff offers a swing migration kit for a fee, incl. step-by-step instructions and his excellent support during the migration. The relatively small investment needed will save you (and your customers) considerable time, and you get to re-use the kit for future swings, too. Check it out.

 

I purchased the swing migration kit last week and it looks real nice but as the old server is going to pensioned off, I figured I would look for a quick and dirty way of doing the migrate. I have used the cloning method before but in that case the hardware was similar (all IDE) and a top-load fixed it all. When I used the clone method last time I did it on a Saturday morning with the old server off-line and had no hassles. I was hoping to avoid a migrate as they have one server based application that uses Pervasive SQL and that would need to be reinstalled by the App vendor.

Given the driver issues it looks like I may have to use the swing method but as I don't have a spare peice of hardware for the interum step, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and by an extra PC just for the project (The client does't have any spare equipment and an extra PC in my home ultimatley might be quite handy for other projects). I guess there is one other advantage also, I get rid off all the "crap" on the old server

 

Another option, if available to you, is to use Virtual PC or VMWare to host the interim build. For a Windows server 2003 migration, it can be done without interim hardware/VPC, but alas not for SBS.

Yes, that is a definite plus!

 

I've always wanted my own personal laptop. Now I can justify it to my wife. And it will become a legitimate tax deductable business expense.

The interesting part will be finding all the CD's at the customer site. Eg Norton Corp, Pervasive, GFI mail essentials, Acronis etc. I have already found the SBS cd's. I think in future whenever I do any installs for customers I will duplicate the CD's and keep the copy at my place under lock and key. Then at least I will always be able to find them