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Windows Server Forum / Windows NT / Setup / February 2005SP6a
How should SP6a be installed on NTServer? Can you just run the setup with the current services running? Are there any "gotchas" going from 4 or 5 to 6a or is the installation of SP6a pretty straightforward? My concern is with the current apps and any drivers that may be replaced. Thanks for any input. Well... hmmm... Usually goes well if you keep your fingers crossed, but your hearth may skip a few beats during the process. 1- Best to make sure that you have a complete backup before you proceed. If things go right wrong a "Bare Metal" restore could save your hide. 2- Make sure you have an updated Emergency Repair Disk before you proceed. Try using the rdisk /s command. If it can't fit the information on the diskette create a regular ERD and do an "Update Repair Info" to store the repair info on the hard drive. This ERD may be a real life saver! 3- Schedule this activity when problems would less affect your users, like on a holiday or a weekend when no one or fewer persons rely on the server. Not a good idea to try this on a Monday morning 5 minutes before the users start the work week! 4- Read the "Readme" file in the SP package. The file may contain important information concerning special issues with your hardware or system configuration or known issues with the SP update. Other than that just do it and hope for the best! Usually it goes well but as you know "Mr Murphy" may come a knocking on the door anytime with his "Law Book". Good luck. John > How should SP6a be installed on NTServer? Can you just run the setup with > the current services running? Are there any "gotchas" going from 4 or 5 to > 6a or is the installation of SP6a pretty straightforward? My concern is with > the current apps and any drivers that may be replaced. > > Thanks for any input. PS. With your complete backup MAKE SURE that you create Emergency Start Disks! You create these disks in the backup software, depending on what backup software you use. This usually requires four or more formatted diskettes. Without these diskettes your backup may be completely useless for bare metal restoration... I learned that the hard way many years ago! John > Well... hmmm... Usually goes well if you keep your fingers crossed, but > your hearth may skip a few beats during the process. [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >> >> Thanks for any input. Thanks for the response. What is a "bare metal" restore? That's when you can wipe the whole drive right clean and do a restore on the clean drive to "exactly" as you had it when you did the backup. "Bare Metal" in the sense that there is absolutely nothing on the pc, no Operating System. Works great in cases of catastrophic failure! You need the startup disks because of SAM encryption, NTFS drivers and certain other critical files that can't be backed up with regular backups. It's an ERD plus what ever else the backup software needs for bare metal restore process. No need to install anything, you format the drive then start the pc with the diskettes then the backup software takes over and performs the restoration. And voila! When you restart the pc it's as if nothing ever happened. A welcome sight when it boots up to familiar territory... Like a ghost image but even easier. John > Thanks for the response. What is a "bare metal" restore? Thanks for the great explaination. Do you need special backup software for this or will products like AcrserveIT or BackupExec be able to do "bare metal" restores? Many thanks again. You don't need special backup software, just good backup software. This is one of the most important basic features of any backup software. Let's say your hard drive blows up, what to do now? Easy, put in a new HD, partition and format it, start the pc with the backup emergency disk and in no time you're up and running. If your backup software can't do that pitch it in the trash can. BackupExec with tapes is what I use and yes it can do that. Arcserve is highly respected and well spoken of so I would certainly think that it can do the same thing. I would think that almost all backup software worth more than five cents can do this. I'm at home now so I can't look exactly where in BackupExec the function is, just poke around in there and you will find something like "Create Emergency Recovery Disks", or look in the help files. Then make sure you have a full backup, including the Registry that you can use for such emergencies. You can even test the backup. Find yourself a test hard drive and remove the hard drive in your pc and install the test drive. Partition the drive, keeping in mind system partition size limits for NT4, format it and then try starting the pc with the Emergency diskettes. See if it works for your setup. When you're done and satisfied that the backup works as expected you can remove the test hard drive and stick the other one back in. You'll have peace of mind once you see how and if it works. The main problem that I have seen with these bare metal restores is that people don't do full system backups often enough, and yes that includes even me... which make me think that tomorrow I will do one... John > Thanks for the great explaination. Do you need special backup software for > this or will products like AcrserveIT or BackupExec be able to do "bare > metal" restores? > > Many thanks again. |
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