Edward, Do you think I might be able to do a test restore to a bare virtual server? I'm wondering if there is a way to extract the raw data from the backup, just not sure if there is a way or not.
Thanks, Richard "I've lost a machine... Literally _lost_. It responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is." On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Edward Ned Harvey <[email protected]>wrote: > I’m really sorry to hear all that. Before you make that phone call, I > will recommend: As soon as you say data is gone, they’re going to wonder > “what about backups.” What you’ve said here about the ntbackup image not > restoring has been very vague. So whatever happens, I’ll recommend really > examining the possibility of restoring the backup, and if it’s not working, > to really understand and be able to explain clearly precisely why it’s not > restorable. > > > > > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Richard Maloley II > *Sent:* Saturday, April 17, 2010 10:08 AM > *To:* Edward Ned Harvey > *Cc:* LOPSA Technical Discussions > *Subject:* Re: [lopsa-tech] Windows SBS 2003 Lost 2 Months Of Data - Help! > > > > Thanks everyone! > > @Luke Hankins: Thank you for the wish of good luck. > > @Steven Kurylo: The new RAID set was for user data, to replace a single > hard drive environment. Completely independant from the OS mirror set, and > not using the same RAID controller. > > @Daniel Pittman: Yes, I believe you are correct - Silicon Image and I > definitely think that it is of the lower quality kind. Apparently I did have > too much confidence in the RAID array telling me when something was wrong. I > believe that you might be correct that a disk dropped out for a while, but I > have no good way of verification without pulling the drives and testing them > one at a time. Which I'm not sure what will happen when I put both of them > back together in the RAID set - I don't think it gives me any options to set > a master. > > @Edward Ned Harvey: Small Business Server has an updated ntbackup that will > backup your Exchange data - it's worked in the past and I have a backup > file, it just won't restore the data for some reason. > > All - Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions. I appreciate it > greatly. At this point I think I might need to tell my customer that the > data is most likely gone. I really feel that there was a problem with the > RAID controller - a mirrored set should always be identical unless the > controller encountered a problem. I think the only thing that would have > prevented this is if we performed a full server backup before I began the > work - it just didn't seem necessary to unplug and plug in some hard drives. > > Monday is going to be a fun call... > > Thanks, > Richard > > "I've lost a machine... Literally _lost_. It responds to ping, it works > completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is." > > On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Edward Ned Harvey <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf > > Of Richard Maloley II > > > > > I unplugged all the SATA cables and put it all back together. I am > > fairly confident that the two drives for the OS were reconnected to the > > proper ports on the RAID card, otherwise I feel the RAID BIOS would > > have given me an error message. > > Oh dear. > > > > > My customer called the next day and complained that they are missing > > all their email/calendar entries after 2/11/2010. Nothing is there > > after that date except for new items that came in after I left for the > > night. > > > > I checked the event logs - same thing! Log files are all blank from > > 2/11/2010 until 4/14/2010. > > You are certainly at high risk right now. And the longer things go on, the > higher your risk becomes. Here's what I suggest: > > Disclaimer: This process could in fact cause risk for you. You're > responsible for your own actions if you follow my advice. I'm just some > random stranger on the Internet, and you'd be irresponsible to take my > advice unless you know what you're doing even better than I do. > > Shutdown, disconnect all drives. Connect *only* one of the OS disks. Boot > up, see if it's ok. If not ... Shutdown, connect *only* the other OS disk. > Boot up, see if it's ok. If not ... all hope is lost. > > For what it's worth: ntbackup is not sufficient to backup your OS. You > can > use it to backup your data files, on your data drive, but not your OS. > Even > if you have valid backup, of the OS, the restore path is to reinstall > windows, and repeat everything that's ever been done on that OS. That is > not a recovery plan if you ask me. > > In fact, you said, email and calendar items were lost. You're not using > ntbackup to backup Exchange, are you? You can't do that. > > Also, you need to revisit your system backup process. You can use > something > like "dd" to make a complete byte-for-byte image of your OS disk, but in > order to restore, you'd have to have the same or identically equivalent > hardware to restore onto. This is one of the areas where virtualization is > very valuable. If your windows server were running as a VM, you could back > it up, copy to new hardware, and boot it up again with no issues. > > >
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