Unfortunately despite the efforts of Yakuza and Comp my old ex475 is dead.

On the positive side my brand new ex495 arrived today, and I have it up and running with the latest updates and patches. I intend to move my three 1tb data drives from the old server to the new one. 2 were in the data pool (folder duplication on for some content) and the third was a system back-up disk as well as the repository for a BDBB backup. I do not intend to reuse the original 500GB system drive from the ex475.

I have most of the data backed up on non-WHS external drives, as well as on the systems themselves, so it will be easier to just start fresh and do new backups all around - with one exception. Unfortunately before I install and reformat the drives on the new system, there is one client system which I need to salvage the backups for.

The ex475 was up to date with the latest version 3 and patches before it died, but I didn't get a chance to test the BDBB restore process.

I've looked through the threads and guides, but I don't want to go through the process of a complete system restore to the new system with the old drives. Is there another way to restore what I need with BDBB from the old drives?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi mickjp,

If I understand you correctly you just want to use BDBB to recovery your Client Data from the old server to the new server. Question I have is where did you store your BDBB Backups?

If the BDBB Data was stored on an UNMANAGED drive be it external or internal then just put the drive back where it was before but in new server and DO NOT ADD IT TO YOUR STORAGE POOL but leave it as an UNMANAGED DRIVE then use BDBB to recover your data.

If I have misunderstood you question please let me know. I am also certain if by chance I have answered incorrectly that Yakuza will be kind enough to correct me. I store my BDBB Data on an external USB Drive which I can remove and install at will.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

I describe how I moved from an EX47x to an EX49x, including my client database, in this article.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/01 ... me-server/

And Tim Daleo just created a video showing how to restore the backup DB over at www.usingwhs.com
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2010/ ... o-edition/

_________________
Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

After setting up the new server, I made a few passes on the system update to make sure all the latest patches are in place. I then shut down the server and moved the server back-up drive I had in slot 4 in the old server to the same slot in the new server. At this point there are no drives in slots 2 and 3.

When the server restarted it recognized the drive in the category "Server Backup Hard Drives" of the Server Storage tab and the drive was named "SERVER BACKUP". I installed BDBB and it shows no backups in the server storage (which it shouldn't) and it shows one backup (113GB) in the SERVER BACKUP drive. I selected that backup and then hit restore (no to the registry strings) and waited for the system to do it's thing. After it completed it showed the systems but said that the backups were corrupted, so I let it attempt to repair the database, but it came back with no backups for any of the 7 systems showing in the list.

I've tried this a several times with the same result each time. I'm getting ready to just move ahead with a fresh setup for each system, but there is one backup I'd like to recover. It's for an old HP z545 which I updated to windows 7, but had wanted to go back to XP, and after several years of upgrades, I don't have the discs to rebuild from scratch. Any ideas?

One other question, are the server back-ups that appear on the server backup drive (when I look in my computer from remote desktop to the server) only useful to replace a failed system drive rather than to replace a dead server? In my case where the original server is dead and the new server is newer hardware, these system back-ups seem to be a waste of time, other than being able to read individual files.

Frustrated!

As long as your new server is of the same patch level or newer (Power Pack should be 3) then it should not have issues with a bad DB unless the backup itself has problems. My only suggestion is to quadruple check that you've got all WHS updates.

_________________
Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

Updates are definitely up to date. The original backup has to be messed up. I remember thinking that the backup (113 GB) was smaller than what BDBB said it would be (143 GB). Unfortunately that was the day the server died so I didn't get to verify it.

Oh well fresh start it is then!

Thanks again guys!

The origina BDBBl backup was definitely messed up. When I got the new server going with original drives the new backup for the same system was 400gb+. It was probably a symptom of the impending system failure.