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Hi there,
Here is a new very specific post, and I have been tearing my hairs out for a few days, trying to get my Active Directory full restore working 🙂 .
I want to begin with some glossary :
UEFI : Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (It’s like a secondary BIOS, often here to install OS with specific drivers)
SDR : Simplified Recovery Disaster (an image created from Backup Exec, which contain a lot of information of a server, and some essential drivers, bounded to the machine)
Here is the facts:
- Want to restore my AD as a test for a future potential recovery
- The fake AD is on a Dell physical server, running a Windows Server 2008 R2
- I want to do it using a SDR Disk, created by Backup Exec 2012.
Go !
To make a restore of such a critical server here is the steps so far, assuming that you already have a complete backup of your AD :
- Verify your complete backup indicate a green light, on the state of the job, meaning that you can run a Simplified Disaster Recovery (SDR) like this :
- Generally, the system state and the C: drive are enough to make a SDR, but in my case, I had to add one other vital partition : the EFI Partition (Because I installed the OS with Dell UEFI).
- If it’s ok, let’s roll, and create a SDR image. First, download the x64 or x86 bit standard .iso SDR (it will be used to created the custom one, matching with your server), so go there :http://www.symantec.com/products-solutions/families/trialware-popup.jsp?fid=backup-exec ( choose Trialware), fill the formulary, and then select the corresponding .iso.
- Click on the Backup Exec menu button, select Settings and parameters > Create a simplified disaster recovery disk.
- It should show up the utility, I will pass here the details, if you want an explanation go there : http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH180099
- Once your .iso is created, burn it on a disk, using the file « BOOT\BOOTFIX.BIN » as the boot file.
- Then try to boot in UEFI mode on the disk on your server to restore. If you see a message like « Boot failed », there is 2 possibilities : It can be your image file that is non-bootable, or you can have the same problem as my former one, the file BOOT.WIM haven’t a matching signing between GPT and MBR tables. So it can’t boot.
- If you don’t have the boot failure issue, please report to the end of the post, if you have (unlucky you are !) continue to read.
- Now, you will have to download this MS hotfix : http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=982929&kbln=en-us and we will have to add it in the SKU of the .WIM file.Unzip the hotmix file to your hard drive (should have a .msu now).
- Unpack the .iso you just created, (on a Windows 7 64bits computer only!) to the hard drive. Then create a new directory named « Mount » on the hard drive too.
- Open a terminal with admin rights, and do the following :
Dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:<pathto>\boot.wim
Then, write down the index of the SKU displayed.
- Next, execute this :
Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:<pathto>\SOURCE\Boot.wim /Index:<index number> /MountDir:C:\Mount
- Note : Here, <index number> refers to the number you got before. If you have more than one SKU, with multiples indexes, you will have to do the next operations, as many times as you got number of indexes. (to apply hotfix to ALL SKU !)
- Appliance of the hotfix :
Dism /image:C:\Mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:"C:\unzipped_hotfix\Windows6.1-kb982929-x64.msu"
- We have now to unmount BOOT.WIM :
Dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\Mount /commit
Note : To avoid an unmount error, please shut all the windows explorer linked to the mount directory.
Then, you have to recreate your .iso file : Personally, I used BurnAware Free (create a booting .iso, and don’t forget to select BOOTFIX.BIN file as the boot file.)
You now have to burn it on a device, personally, I’ve done it on a USB key, using ISO to USB software, in a FAT32 file system.
And I was able to boot in UEFI mode and to proceed the recovery operation with the SDR on my server. (if you want details about using the SDR once it’s displayed, refer here again :
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH180099
I hope it could help people, anyway I had some research work to do, to understand clearly the issue, and if it could save time to others 🙂
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