System State Backup & Restore in Windows Server 2008
With new backup feature Windows Server 2008 old good ntbackup has gone. Sadly there is no tape drive backup option in Windows Server 2008. Windows backup now uses keep the backup as vhd file and uses VSS to create block level incremental backup.(Sweet isn’t it!). Here is a short tutorial on how to perform System State Backup/Restore with new Backup tool.
As mentioned before Windows backup tool is feature should should be installed in server. Installation of Windows Backup can be done by either using GUI which is using Server Manager or by using command.
For Command line here is code
servermanagercmd -install Backup-Features
Performing System state backup:
System state Backup can only be achieved by using wbadmin tool which command line tool.
code
wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:x:
where is x is drive. Windows backup disk to disk backup solution so we use a drive.
Performing System state restore:
System State restoration can only be done in Directory Service Repair Mode, which can be done by entering Windows Recovery Environment. Now recovery is tricky part. To restore you need to restore to some sort of version. Every time you take a backup Backup will create a version, we will restore according version.
To display versions
code
wbadmin get versions
To restore from versions
code
wbadmin start systemstaterecovery –backuptarget:x:
where x is drive.
to perform authoritative restore –authsysvol switched must be used.