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How to perform a local recovery of a Microsoft Windows 2003 Small Business Server

This is my personal experience and whilst not a complete restore procedure, will get you up and running.

This procedure should only be done when you are at the point of no return.

This is based on using Backup Exec 11d Small Business Edition.

Other baremetal recovery pages you might like to reference

This is how to recover to the same server/hardware after a hardware fault has been repaired and your system software is unusable.

This relies on you having a good and complete backup (A tape drive or disk drive with image/file attached locally to the server). This backup includes all drives, Exchange (Information store), SQL, open files, transaction logs, system state etc. I am assuming a full backup here and not an incremental or differential backup. These types of backups can be recovered using these instructions and reading between the lines.

If you are at this point, 2 drives in your 3 disk array have failed or your single drive server (not recommended) has failed. The software is unworkable, the recovery console and recovery installation will not work. You can't see the NTFS server partition and can't recover from what you have.

Items to have available to enable you to do a bare metal recovery using Backup Exec 11d with SBS 2003:

Firmware and Hardware driver versions

Motherboard firmware

Network card make/model

SCSI back plane firmware revision
Video card make / model (Optional)

Other information required

First volume Drive C:\ size
Directory information
- Server name
- Domain name
- Administrator Password
SQL Server
- instance names
  - MSSQL$MSFW
  - MSSQL$SBSMONITORING
  - MSSQL$SHAREPOINT
  - MSSQL$WSUS
  - MSSQL$BKUPEXEC
  - MICROSOFT##SSEE
- SA or Windows Authentication in use
- Service pack level
- Database locations
Service packs
- Windows Server
- ISA server
- Exchange Server
- Exchange IMF Version
Backup Exec location and version
Server IP addresses (All interfaces)

All my servers are NTFS and Windows is always in C:\WINDOWS

Have the SBS disk media, Backup Exec Media and all serial numbers available.

This procedure will first restore the Windows 2003 Small Business Server (SBS) computer's operating system to its pre-disaster state and will restore data files. This procedure will then restore the Exchange public and private information (which is protected by the Backup Exec database agents included with Backup Exec for Windows Small Business Server Edition, i.e. Agents for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Microsoft SQL 2000.

Note: I have yet to document the SQL database recoveries.

You need to review your Backup logs and confirm you have a complete full successful backup.

Note: Please refer the various Microsoft Small Business Server 2000/2003, SharePoint etc Disaster Recovery White Papers for guidelines and preparations for a disaster recovery scenario.

Install the Windows 2003 Small Business Server Operating System

Install Windows 2003 Small Business Server from the first SBS disk or if this is a HP server (As in my case) use the SmartStart media to initiate the installation process. (This basic Windows 2003 Small Business Server installation is necessary to provide Backup Exec with a target to which it can restore the system).

As previously mentioned, The computer name, Windows 2003 Small Business Server installation directory (C:\Windows) and the file system (NTFS) must be the same as the previous Windows 2003 Small Business Server installation. This installation will be overwritten by the backed up version, which will restore your original system configuration, application settings, and security settings.

If you are recovering from an entire hard disk or RAID failure, use the Microsoft Windows 2003 Small Business Server setup or in my case, HP SmartStart CD, to partition and format the new disk during installation. Format the partitions the same size (or larger), and file system as before the failure. (HP SmartStart default is about 22 Gb)

Connect the server to a standalone switch as you need a datalink. (The NIC must indicate it is connected)

When Microsoft Windows server is installed, manually configure static IP settings for the Internal network card (My installations are two NIC installs) to match that of the server before failure. Create any further partitions you previously had.

Let the SBS wizard start. Put in the network details, Active Directory name and select the local adaptor. As part of the SBS installation and wizards, Active Directory and DNS will be installed. The server will reboot and be a domain controller.

Continue the SBS setup wizard only selecting the Server tools. To not install Exchange, SBS monitoring, faxing, SQL, ISA etc.

Install any, and all, previously installed operating system service packs and hot fixes prior to the disaster (In my case this was R2, Install Windows server SP1).

Install Backup Exec to a directory other than where it was originally installed (this is a temporary installation and can be deleted later). Use the same serial number as the previous installation and install all the same agents. In my case I installed to: D:\temp\Backupexec

Backup Exec 11d will likely find and install the driver for your backup unit during it's install and then it might require a reboot.

Note: You will always log on to Windows 2003 Small Business Server using the Administrator account for the rest of this procedure.

If a tape driver was not found or you are using a hard disk, Use the Device Driver Installation Wizard, install the appropriate device driver for the attached media drive

Preload Backup Exec with tape catalog information

After a reboot, open Backup Exec and complete the first time wizards.

From the Devices tab, inventory the media containing the latest full backup of the computer to be recovered

Catalog the media containing the latest full backup of the computer to be recovered.

Reboot the computer

Restoration begins

Press <F8> when prompted during the boot-up sequence and select Directory Service Restore Mode

Log on to the server as the user "Administrator" with the password that was selected during the installation of Windows 2003 Small Business Server

Run services.msc

Set each of the following services to run with the local system account

Backup Exec Agent browser

Backup Exec Device and media

Backup Exec Job engine

Backup Exec Server

Backup Exec remote agent for Windows servers

SQLserver (Bkupexec)

Start all the Backup Exec services. I found a reboot may be necessary, if the services do not start on the server. (After a reboot go back into AD restore mode)

Run Backup Exec Small Business Server Edition

From the Restore Selections tab

Select to restore all the drives
System State / Shadow Copy Components

Do not restore the physical SQL and Exchange Server folder system folders. (These are handled separately later).

This means deselect "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL server" and "C:\Program files\Exchsrvr" If you had customized locations for transaction logs or data files for SQL and Exchange, do not restore these custom locations.

From the General are, select the options Restore security and Preserve tree and Restore over existing files. Also overwrite the registry.

From the Advanced section, select Mark this server as the "primary arbitrator for replication when restoring folders managed by the File Replication Service, or when restoring the SYSVOL in System State".

Start the restore and reboot the server when done.

The computer's operating system is now restored to its pre-disaster state. The data files have been restored, except Exchange and SQL.

You will be logging into your domain controller as it was. All AD information, logs, configurations, shares and files will be available. DNS, DHCP, Desktop faxing, roaming profiles etc will all be up and running. All your settings for Exchange will be there but no database files yet.

As the SQL instance of Backup Exec will likely not work, I elected here to uninstall and reinstall Backup Exec. This gets Backup Exec working and ready for the recovery of Exchange.

I also elected to uninstall and reinstall ISA and it's MSDE databases. There was nothing of real value for me in the old MSDE databases.

The R2 Wsus database and software can be simply uninstalled and reinstalled. This will recreate it's database.

This leaves the following SQL databases to recover later

MSSQL$SBSMONITORING

MSSQL$SHAREPOINT

Restoring Exchange 2003 Databases

Note: During re-installation of Microsoft Exchange, you may be prompted for the Microsoft Exchange Product Key. Use the SBS installation key.

Note: Transaction logs that are present on the system before the databases are restored may interfere with the recovery process and prevent the database from being mounted after the recovery. This is why Microsoft Exchange 2003 installation files were not selected for restore during the restoration of the Windows 2000 Small Business Server operating system.

If the Exchsrvr directory, C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr, was restored during the restore of the operating system, the Exchsrvr directory will need to be deleted before reinstalling Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 as outlined in the steps below. Subsequently, log file directories that may have existed will also need to be deleted.

Make sure that Backup Exec applications are closed.

Set the Backup Exec services to Manual in the Services.msc applet. (This is necessary to have Backup Exec not claim exclusive control to the file mapi32.dll.)

Reboot the server. The Backup Exec services will not start as we set them to Manual.

Insert the Windows 2003 Small Business Server Disk with Exchange 65 on it.

Run the following command line:

CD-ROM Drive:\Exchsrvr65\setup\I386\setup.exe /disasterrecovery

Click Next at the Component Selection screen to continue with the Exchange Disaster Recovery Setup process. Click OK at the prompt asking to verify that a Server object for the Exchange server exists in Active Directory (If this occurs)

There will also be multiple prompts indicating that files to be copied already exist and are newer than those being transferred from the CD. Click No to All to retain the newer files.

Click OK at the prompt and reboot the server now.

When the Setup Disaster Recovery process is complete, re-apply Service pack 2 from the R2 Technologies disk.

From Services.msc, verify if the Microsoft Exchange services are started and if they are not, attempt to start them.

Using the Exchange System Manager, set the Information Store databases in all Storage Groups to be dismounted and also set to be overwritten by restores on the Database tab of the Properties dialog of each individual store.

Change the startup type of the Backup Exec services back to Automatic mode and then start the services. Open the Backup Exec console.

Click Restore, Click the Exchange section, and clear the No Loss Restore selection

Enter a location where the associated log and patch files are to be kept until the database is restored in the field Temporary location for log and patch files. After the database is restored, the log and patch files in the temporary location are applied to the database, and then the current log files are applied. After the restore is complete, the log and patch files are automatically deleted from the temporary location (including any sub-directories)

Note: Make sure the temporary location for log and patch files is empty and large enough before starting a restore job. If a restore job fails, check the temporary location (including any sub-directories) to make sure any previous log and patch files from a previous restore job were deleted.

Select Commit after restore completes.

Run the restore.

After the store is complete, run

C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Bin\Eseutil /p priv1.edb
C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Bin\Eseutil /p pub1.edb

Now open the Exchange System Manager and check that the databases can be mounted, allow them to mount at startup and unselect the flag that allows them to be overwritten.

Exchange should now be back online.

Restoring SQL 2005 Databases

MSSQL$SBSMONITORING

MSSQL$SHAREPOINT

Notes to be completed

I know that this requires the exact same versions of SQL and Service pack levels before the restore and that I need to restore in Database Master mode. SQL 2005 has a different way to do this than SQL 2000.

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