Cloning SBS 2003 to a larger drive

Jonboy · Post by **Jonboy** » 06 Apr 2011, 07:51

Hi all,

We currently have SBS 2003 running on an 80Gb drive. From the BIOS I can detect that a second drive was previously installed as part of the RAID array which has since been removed and the array is now degraded. We are consistently getting low-disk space errors in SBS2003, what with the Exchange Database, Blackberry BES Server and WSUS running on the OS drive.

I purchased us a 500Gb SATA 3 disk and an Adaptec PCI-X Sata Controller (because the old machine only has one SATA port). All of that installed correctly.

My plan was to use Ghost to clone the drive to the new drive, remove the old drive, boot to windows using the SBS install disc and repairing the Windows installation. First problem is that SBS is not detecting a Windows installation on the cloned disc and I cannot figure out why because when you try boot off the HDD it gets as far as the Windows screen and then reboots itself.

Any suggestions on other software or methods to try? We used Norton Ghost 2003.

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:01

One SATA port and RAID was applied to two drives?

Jonboy · Post by **Jonboy** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:03

IcePick88 wrote:One SATA port and RAID was applied to two drives?

I don't understand it myself, I inherited the setup from the previous moegoe and am trying to piece things back together...

[Edit] Wait, discovered what happened, there are two Sata ports, one of which hosts the OS drive and the other, the networked storage drive so I can only think that one of the RAID drives was removed to make way for the 500Gb storage drive [/Edit]

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:16

My educated guess would be that RAID 0+1 was applied and when you ghosted the drive, it also ghosted that RAID info. Now the drive is connected to a "external" SATA port that is not connected to a RAID controller and therefore cannot "see" the installation.

Or have you connected the new drive to the onboard SATA?

Jonboy · Post by **Jonboy** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:21

IcePick88 wrote:My educated guess would be that RAID 0+1 was applied and when you ghosted the drive, it also ghosted that RAID info. Now the drive is connected to a "external" SATA port that is not connected to a RAID controller and therefore cannot "see" the installation.

Or have you connected the new drive to the onboard SATA?

I tried both, I connected the new drive to the onboard SATA port and to the "external" SATA port - thing is, the PCI-X Sata controller is an Adaptec RAID controller model.

Suggestions how to work around this?

I also suspect there's something with the RAID that's causing issues.

senile · Post by **senile** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:23

You are fighting a losing battle. I have tried several times to clone a SBS2003 drive with various cloning applications, all had the same results: It's stuck forever in the Windows loading screen, then reboots. I did manage to clone it eventually but can't remember how... I'm having flashbacks of System restore...

Jonboy · Post by **Jonboy** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:27

senile wrote:You are fighting a losing battle. I have tried several times to clone a SBS2003 drive with various cloning applications, all had the same results: It's stuck forever in the Windows loading screen, then reboots. I did manage to clone it eventually but can't remember how... I'm having flashbacks of System restore...

#things_I_didnt_want_to_hear

My contingency (and one which I am trying to avoid at all costs) is to re-install SBS 2003 to the new 500Gb drive, use our existing Veritas software to do a full system backup including system state, exchange etc on the old drive and restore the backup to the new drive. This, however, will require most of a Saturday because the business can't functions sans email and file server all day, hence my quest for another solution.

So many people have successfully pulled this off, trust me to get the problem child..

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:30

Tough one.

Try this: Create a ghost image of the drive (probably with RAID 0+1 as well on it) to a totally different drive that you won't use.

Then insert your new bigger drive (two if you can to create a RAID 0+1), setup the array and volume, and then restore the image to that array volume.

senile · Post by **senile** » 06 Apr 2011, 08:35

Jonboy wrote:
#things_I_didnt_want_to_hear

My contingency (and one which I am trying to avoid at all costs) is to re-install SBS 2003 to the new 500Gb drive, use our existing Veritas software to do a full system backup including system state, exchange etc on the old drive and restore the backup to the new drive. This, however, will require most of a Saturday because the business can't functions sans email and file server all day, hence my quest for another solution.

So many people have successfully pulled this off, trust me to get the problem child..

Ah, it's all coming back to me now

Spent an entire weekend doing backup & restore because the poor people cannot function without downloading lolcat emails! Rest assured, even on a Saturday you will receive calls from people asking if there is anything wrong with the server and if it will be fixed within 15 mins. Good times, good times

rustypup · Post by **rustypup** » 06 Apr 2011, 13:44

see if you can grab an evaluation copy of platespin... it replicates at the block level ...

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 06 Apr 2011, 13:54

rustypup wrote:see if you can grab an evaluation copy of platespin... it replicates at the block level ...

PlateSpin is a virtualization focussed product. AFAIK yes, it can replicate, but to a VM and not a physical single drive. Correct me if I'm wrong.

rustypup · Post by **rustypup** » 06 Apr 2011, 14:03

platespin supports physical-to-virtual,virtual-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical... not sure if an eval license would offer all of this though...

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 06 Apr 2011, 14:06

rustypup wrote:platespin supports physical-to-virtual,virtual-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical... not sure if an eval license would offer all of this though...

Ja I guess he can go that route, but dang, platespin is not a small thing to quickly install and run.
But if it's the only thing left, then I guess he has to.

EDIT: I'd rather then get a eval copy (if possible as well) of Acronis. It has the capabilities to create a backup of a server and restore it to totally different hardware. That might be a bit easier than platespin.

rustypup · Post by **rustypup** » 06 Apr 2011, 14:08

yeah... no small task

... but, it's block level so it will ignore everything else which may be hampering the process...

JollyJamma · Post by **JollyJamma** » 07 Apr 2011, 15:08

Loathed as I am to suggest it http://us.norton.com/ghost/

IcePick88 · Post by **IcePick88** » 07 Apr 2011, 15:12

JollyJamma wrote:Loathed as I am to suggest it http://us.norton.com/ghost/

Hau, did you read his first post?

He used Ghost and now the server won't boot from the Ghosted HDD.

Jonboy · Post by **Jonboy** » 07 Apr 2011, 15:39

Reading this thread with growing despair, set aside some time on Saturday to tackle this beast and am busy downloading the latest version of Ghost (previously tried 2003), Acronis and scouring for an eval copy of the software Rusty suggested. Rebooted it this morning though and I had a selection of two OS'es to choose from so there is something on the new drive that successfully copied over, too much of weird.

JollyJamma · Post by **JollyJamma** » 07 Apr 2011, 22:39

Well when I was 19 I worked for an IT company who had a client who needed his hard drive duplicated exact.
It was an install of Suse with motion detection and the ability to see people interacting with a projected image such as fish which would swim away when you went near them. This was great except he shipped the install to Germany to get it done, with labour and everything total value of the machine was R100 000 for a core2Duo setup.

I had to duplicate it. I used a Linux tool to do it but it was from an 80gig to a 320gig and it even forced the 320gig to be seen as an 80gig.
This doesn't help I know and you may need to find a newer tool like it that can adjust for a greater capacity HDD.

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