I have a single server, Win 2003 Server and would like to setup a system to be able to perform a bare bones restore if needed. (just plug in a cd or smth and get everything back).
Ideally the backup could be performed while the is powered so that i don't have to support downtime during this, and in order to restore i would reboot and use some sort of liveCD
Any ideas on this, software and all… ?
(backup will be done to a remote FTP server with plenty of bandwidth).
Best Answer
I'm not sure if I understood your question properly, but I'll try to answer anyway. I think you're talking about a bare metal restore. If you are, then you will have to restart any OS just to do a restore. If you don't want that, then maybe you are talking about volume shadow copy service.
You can do this using the built-in NTBACKUP software of Windows 2003. You simple select "Automated System Recovery" and it will make a full backup your system (while it is serving to your users) to a disk you specify and then it will as you to insert a floppy disk that will serve as a boot disk.
If in the case that you need to do this, just plug the backup disk and insert the floppy and then boot it all up.