Has anyone done a successful Disaster Recovery on Windows 7?

[rhylton]

I've been trying to restore a Windows 7 laptop client that had a hard drive failure using Retrospect 8.5 and the restore keep producing a badly corrupted Windows.  Has anyone succeeded at this?  If so exactly what steps did you follow?  Here are some problems I've encountered:  First, when restoring over a network the restore takes just shy of three days (yes, days).  File copying only takes 6 or 7 hours, the rest of the time is "completing restore" with about one byte/sec between the server and client.  This happens whether I use a Diasaster Recovery disk or re-install the original OS and the Retrospect client.  I finally had to copy the backup set to another drive that I could attach directly to the laptop.  In this case the restore takes under 12 hours.  However every restore I've tried (from two different snapshots) leaves me with a laptop that boots Windows but has such serious problems it's basically worthless.  The event log shows hundreds of errors at startup (mostly about services failing).   Windows Update has a strange problem where it says it can't run because certain services aren't running even though they are.  I researched this problem some and found Microsoft tools that attempt to repair this specifc Windows Update problem.  These tools report that they've fixed incorrect permissions, invalid registry entries, and corrupted files but still can't get Windows Update to run.  I'm running out of ideas, and Retrospect support doesn't seem able to help.  I'd love to hear what steps someone used to successfully do this.  Otherwise I'm going have to reinstall the original OS again and spend a lot of time setting up the laptop and reinstalling software.

 

Thanks,

Ron

[Scillonian]

What procedure are you using to perform your restore? (Retrospect Disaster Recovery CD, install from installation media and restore, etc)

 

My current approach to disaster recovery is to every six months or so make a clone image of the system volume using Clonezilla. For the recovery the image of the system volume is restored with Clonezilla, Windows Update is run to bring Windows up to date and finally Retrospect is run to bring everything else up to date. Clonezilla is run from live Linux and the images are stored on a dedicated NAS share. (The Windows Update step can be skipped if it is disabled before running Retrospect to prevent it from trying to install updates during the restore.)

 

Before this I would reinstall Windows (2000, XP, Vista or 7) from installation media, run Windows Update then run Retrospect to restore everything else. I abandoned this approach in favor of clone images when it started to take the best part of a day to bring Windows 7 up to date with Windows Update.

[rhylton]

I've tried using the Retrospect DR CD and also reinstalling the original OS + Retrospect client to do the restore, either way I get an unusable Windows.  It sounds like you keep all your data files on a separate partition and use Retrospect for that, but don't use Retrospect to restore Windows.  That might be a good strategy for the future, unfortunately it doesn't help me right now.

[cfieldgate]

Hi Ron H,

 

I am sorry, but this won't be of much help :-(.

 

I have successfully used the DR process with Retrospect v9. After creating the DR image I put it on a PXE server so I can network boot any of my PCs with it. I then navigate to the correct backup and snapshot and restore. I have done this a few times and the restore times didn't take that long - a hour or so. The only issue I have had is that occasionally it seems to have trouble connecting to the NAS share where the backup is. Normally trying to connect again works.

 

All my PCs are built with only Windows and applications on the C: drive. All user data (including My Documents etc.) is on a separate physical drive which I restore after restoring the C: drive.

 

Additionally, I have created base images (O/S with all updates at the time of creation and the main applications) for my PCs using Microsoft's Deployment Workbench and the ADK. I can restore these from my PXE server too, giving me a clean build.

 

I am wondering whether perhaps the backups you have are the issue - perhaps there is some file corruption?

[Scillonian]

On my laptops the OS, applications and data are all on the same partition. About a year ago the hard drive failed on a Windows 7 Professional laptop. After seeding the replacement hard drive with a Clonezilla image created several months before I used Retrospect to finish the restore.

 

What is the make and model of the laptop? Which edition (Home, Home Premium, Professional, etc) of Windows 7 is installed and is it 32-bit or 64-bit? Does the installation media you are using have Service Pack 1 (SP1) already integrated? I have found that I can never get a successful restore when restoring a Windows 7 SP1 system when non SP1 installation media is used.

[rhylton]

The laptop is an HP Pavilion dv7 with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.  I built a new DR cd off a Windows 7 Professional 64 machine so I don't think that SP1 would be the problem.  I used to have problems with grooming corrupting my backup sets so I run verifies every day which show no problem.  I've tried 2 different snapshots from the same backup set with no luck.  I do have another backup set for the same laptop so I guess for completeness I should try that.  I don't relish spending another 3 days with the Retrospect server tied up in the restore so I'll have to copy that to a drive I can move to the laptop, which will take about 6 hours (sigh).  Thanks for the ideas.  Scillonian, which Retrospect versions have you restored Windows 7 from?  I have a dim recollection of succeeding with Retrospect 7.7 a long time ago.  I upgraded to Retrospect 9 a few months after it came out but I got lots of errors while doing backups so I reverted to 8.5 and I'm still afraid to try 9 again.

[Scillonian]

The laptop is an HP Pavilion dv7 with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.  I built a new DR cd off a Windows 7 Professional 64 machine so I don't think that SP1 would be the problem.

 

Have tried doing a Live Restore as below?

• Install the same edition of Windows 7 being using by the laptop at the time of the backup.
• If the installation media is pre-SP1 then use Windows Update to bring to SP1.
• Install Retrospect. (Full application, not the Client).
• Add the backup set for the restore.
• Perform the restore of entire C: drive while the system is booted from the C: drive.
• When the restore is complete remove Retrospect.

Some models of the dv7 us the InsydeH2O 'BIOS' which although it may be emulating a legacy BIOS is based on the EFI framework. Only DR CDs created by Retrospect 9.5 (or later) support EFI based systems.

 

I used to have problems with grooming corrupting my backup sets so I run verifies every day which show no problem.

 

I assume you rebuilt the catalog file after each failed groom.

 

I've tried 2 different snapshots from the same backup set with no luck.  I do have another backup set for the same laptop so I guess for completeness I should try that. I don't relish spending another 3 days with the Retrospect server tied up in the restore so I'll have to copy that to a drive I can move to the laptop, which will take about 6 hours (sigh).  Thanks for the ideas.

 

You could try using Snapshot Transfer to transfer a shapshot(s) for the laptop to a temporary backup set that could then be transferred to an external drive. Although I have restored over a network connection from the DR CD (if the NIC is supported by WinPE) I find a local eSATA connection best. I also find it useful to keep the system being restored isolated from the internet until the restore is complete. This stops automatic updates and Windows activation causing problems.

 

Scillonian, which Retrospect versions have you restored Windows 7 from?  I have a dim recollection of succeeding with Retrospect 7.7 a long time ago.

 

Now that I check the restore was in early 2012 so it would have been Retrospect 8.0 or 8.1.

 

I upgraded to Retrospect 9 a few months after it came out but I got lots of errors while doing backups so I reverted to 8.5 and I'm still afraid to try 9 again.

Did you recycle the backup set when you reverted to 8.5? If you were using the Block Level Incremental Backup option with 9 this will have made changes to the backup set that are not understood by 8.5.

 

What errors were you getting with Retrospect 9.x?

[rhylton]

I'm trying a restore from a different backup set now.  If that fails I'll just have to reinstall the original OS, let Windows update itself, reinstall all the applications, recreate the users etc. and hopefully get the user files back from Retrospect.  I appreciate the suggestions but I think this is getting beyond my technical competence and I'm fairly sure the manual procedure will work and frankly take less time than I've already spent trying to get the Retrospect restore working.

 

With the grooming problem, I recycled any backup set where the verification failed.  It's been a while since this happened but I still run daily verifications.

 

With Retrospect 9, my backups were getting errors on dozens of files that said "appears incomplete" or "doesn't compare" (all .zip's and .jpg's).  I had no errors on backups prior to upgrading to 9, and none since going back to 8.5.  And yes, I created new backup sets after downgrading.