Microsoft Doesn't Support IMAGING of Domain Controllers!!

Can someone please confirm what is required on our single SBS2000 domain controller?

It's a PDC in a one-server environment which also runs exchange and SQL.

What services need to be stopped before the image commences?

Thanks.
-- DJ

 

I just had to do my first production server restore of the OS using the method described in this thread, and had 100% success. everything is up and working great!!

my environment has multiple dc's in remote WAN's that are all in one domain.

1. unplug network cable from server
2. Boot to acronis cd. choose full version
3. restore image
4. reboot into directory services restore mode
5. restore most recent system state of the server
6. reboot into normal windows mode and make sure everything is intact. programs data, etc.
7. reboot server
7. while rebooting and out of the OS plug in network cable
8. allow windows to start in normal mode and check the logs on this server and the other servers in the replication topology. look below for the log that is healthy and means your dc is correctly replicating and talking to the others.
9. Thank acronis and the guys who tested this before you to know exactly what needs to be done.


EventID: 1587
Type: Informational
Catagory: Replication

This domain controller has been restored or has been configured to host an application partition. As a result, its replication identity has changed. A partner has requested replication changes using our old identity. The starting sequence number has been adjusted.
The destination domain controller corresponding to the following object GUID has requested changes starting at a USN that precedes the USN at which the local domain controller was restored from backup media.

Object GUID:
158bc137-84e3-4b7f-aac2-36568045cb61
USN at the time of restore:
1633303

As a result, the up-to-dateness vector of the destination domain controller has been configured with the following settings.

Previous database GUID:
c7464231-39ca-4368-bd7b-1e75d0ec1b78
Previous object USN:
1641881
Previous property USN:
1641881
New database GUID:
ebf4b03f-16b1-478c-ab8a-39acb4beb915
New object USN:
1633303
New property USN:
1633303

 

Any changes to this with the 9.1 release?

 

Hey TonioRoffo thanks for all the info. Great stuff to know.

 

I am a new guy here and thanks a lot for posting this thread which has helped me understand imaging a domain controller using the acronis software. Actually, I have a couple of questions regarding imaging one of our domain controllers (we have severals domain controllers nationwide) that currently has its hard drives mirrored -Dynamic drive- and we are planning to 1) capture the image, 2) change the scsi controller to support RAID 5 and 3) add more drives to expand the capacity. In doing so, I plan to take the following steps. Please feel free to add any comments and/or suggestions.

The steps are as follows:

Uploading the domain controller image:
1.Backup the system state data- Based on the recommendation of TonioRoffo
2.stop the NTFRS and netlogon
3.start uploading the images- I am planning to upload the image to a scsi external drive.

Restoration of the image;
1. First of all, because our current controller won't support raid5, I have to add another controller which needs a driver during the restoration. As I have said earlier, the current configuration of our server is Dynamic-mirrored. But the universal restore in my knowledge won't support dynamic disk.
***What should I do in this case?***

2.Add the scsi drives and configure it for RAID 5
3.boot from acronis cd enterprise edition and restore the image
4.After the image restoration, reboot into the directory services restore mode
5.then restore the most recent state of the server
6.finally reboot the server, plug in the network cable and check all the data files and programs
I don't know how successful it will be because it involves new hardware. Plus the complexity of the dynamic disk with the universal restore is not a supported type. ***Any input?***

Please help me out and give me any suggestions regarding these steps I am going to take in our upcoming project of adding another raid 5 controller and additional hard drives to our server by using the acronis server 9.1 for windows.

Thank you and I am looking forward for any input!

jsp

 

We did our domain controler imaging two weeks ago and everything goes fine following the steps listed above. We were able to upgrade our server hard drives space, changed the raid controller and convert to raid5.

I would like to say thank you guys.

Jay

 

Hello,

New here and it looks like there's a lot of great info. Thanks for all the postings..
Has anyone successfully used Acronis True Image Server w/Universal restore to move a Domain Controller to DIFFERENT hardware in a working environment? Totally different HAL's - Dell PIII > Dual Xeon HP

I tried it in a lab with 2 DC's - imaging a Dell workstation and using UR to immediately restore it on an HP Proliant... It worked like a charm. Replication was successful and after a few minutes all dcdiag errors cleared up...

However, I tried this with a working DC that I wanted to move to new hardware and it didn't work correctly. It was only off-line for maybe 2 hours total, after working hours. Even so, when the restored box came back up, it could not communicate with the 2 other DC's, and vice-versa. Could not force replication. Kept getting access denied and Time sync errors... I was forced to put the old server back in place and after some handholding, cleared up all dcdiag errors and ensured replication worked again..... Scary. I thought since it worked in the lab and only a few hours had elapsed since the image was created, it would have worked.


Can someone please tell me the best way of moving a 2K DC to new hardware, but keeping the same hostname/IP? Maybe demoting the DC to a member server first? I'd appreciate any advice on this. Thanks.