[dba-Tech] Windows Small Business Server

John,

for backup I have bought a small NAS system named evSerNAS 660i. It is in a 
very small desktop like case and runs RAID 5 with 6 x 300GB disks (one is a 
hot spare). total 1.14 TB.

as for the mirror system, that of course protects oly from disk failures, 
not when your win screws up.
in such case you want to have a drive image and something to start your PC 
without the damaged partition, which is not easy, since on the mirror system 
you need to load the driver for the mirror plus the network drivers to get 
access to both, your system and the backup image.
the Bart-pe which Gustav mentions is one way (which I still have to set up)
another way is to use the resue disk of the drive image program, but there 
is again the problem with the drivers, and then there is this Langa Letter 
"XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total Rebuild Option"  which lets you 
repair WinXP without need to reinstall the programs, well sometimes at 
least.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

Lembit


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JWColby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
To: "'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'" 
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Windows Small Business Server


> My "server" system just blue screened, and when I tried to reboot it said 
> I
> needed to repair the windows install (could not find file X in
> c:\windows\...).  Of course I don't have a system disk set (the four
> floppies). I could swear that I have in the past booted off the Windows CD
> and it offered to repair the install.  This time it did not and launched
> right in to reinstalling windows.  Boy does THAT suck!!!  So it certainly
> appears that whatever happened trashed the disk.  Boy does THAT suck.  I
> have a nice raid mirror (which appears to still be valid!) which did not
> help at all.
>
> Given all the above I am really hesitant to rebuild this thing.  Every 
> time
> this happens I always swear that THIS time I am going to figure out how to
> gracefully recover, but once again I am rebuilding a computer.
>
> Speaking of which, I now have a pair of SQL Server files which (of course)
> contain a lot of work.  They reside out on separate data disks and are
> probably just fine.  Is it possible to get them "mounted" again when I get 
> a
> new system up running SQL Server?  They are not backup disks, just the
> normal files that SQL Server creates in the process of doing business.
>
> So how do you ensure that you can always recover from this kind of stuff? 
> A
> mirror was no help at all.  And why did Windows not recognize that there 
> was
> a windows install on that partition and offer to repair it?  I am 
> launching
> into a project that is so big that if it crashes like this again I will be
> really screwed.  There will be a terabyte SQL Server database.  How do you
> back THAT up?  I am looking at going out and buying a media fire safe and
> extra hard disks (they come in 750g sizes now) but even so, backing it up 
> is
> going to be a week long project.
>
> Any words of wisdom on any of this?
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
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