My server suffered a "power outage" in mid March (now mid May) that resulted in corruption of my SYS volume. I found that I could not RDP into the server and as such, could not "see" what was going on. (turns out I believe my power supply was failing, so I have installed a new one. Another issue: the fan within the PS is God awful loud!)
Server shares were available for about 3 minutes following boot, but then would fall offline.
I probably exacerbated the issue by doing a couple hard shutdowns, but the bottom line is that I've begun setting up a fresh install on the ole box..
My question is regarding the client backup database. For reasons I can't remember, although I had been using the BDBB plugin, I had stopped. I have made backups of the database manually every 6 months, so I have two versions of my client backup database one of which is from January 2018, so very recent.
I also exported the WHS hive from the registry on the server each time I backed up the client BU DB and saved that on the drive. So I have those as well.
As fate would have it, one of the computers on my home network became infected with a nasty virus. So although I really don't need my client backups, I would really like to get at least one of them so I can restore this machine that got infected.
Has anyone successfully reinstalled a backed up client database and then ALSO successfully restored a client from the restored database?
If yes, can you offer some guidance on the following questions regarding the client backup database restoration?
What I've done:
* Clean install on new SYS drive * Pulled ALL Microsoft and HP updates * Installed one additional HDD (1.5TB) in the server and added it to the storage pool (So I have one DATA partition on the primary drive and one DATA partition on the 2nd drive. My client backup database is < 800GB so plenty of space for it) * Shut down the two services necessary to backup or restore the client database per the MS whitepaper on backing up the client backup database: PDL and WHSBackup * Copied the entire backup database from my backup drive to the backup location on the server (D:\folders\{....A7AB4}) * Restarted the two services in reverse order on the server: WHSBackup and PDL * Rebooted the server
Questions:
* Is it necessary to import the registry hive that I backed up (exported) for the client backup database to function correctly. It seems to me it must be, but I don't know. * If I have exported the ENTIRE WHS registry hive, will importing the entire backup version of it break my current WHS install? * Is there a set of keys I should import only? (I've opened the WHS hive I exported and browsed it and see what appears to be a lot of configuration data that could conflict with my current, different, new install) * My prior iteration of the server had 3 HDD in the storage pool (all bays filled). My new, temporary server has just one. Does this create a mismatch with data in the registry and as such, will it prevent me from recovering a client backup to reimage my infected client machine?
I am going to keep working on this before any of you has replied, but I will probably have to come back to where I am now and take a different path if what I try doesn't work. Fortunately, I've imaged the SYS partition on my new server so it should be easy to get back to where I am now to use whatever advice / information you offer.
I'll document what I do here with the intent that it helps someone else as we all face aging systems and this type of issue becomes more common among us.
Thanks in advance! B
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