Any advice or shortcuts on disaster recovery using Windows 2000 onto dissimilar hardware would be appreciated. There are technet articles, however they do not really seem to be "exact" insofar as they say to try this and if that fails, then try this and then backup omitting these registry keys and then try this.
One would think that there should be a way to omit restoring the "hardware" registry keys while still restoring all of the other keys. In the NT 4 environment this could be accomplished but it seems that you either take the entire "system state" on a recovery or nothing at all.
Any insight, tips or tricks you can shed on this matter would help when trying to restore onto dissimilar hardware in the event of a true disaster and identical hardware may not be available (off-site facility as an example.)
Requires Free Membership to View
When you register for SearchDataBackup.com, you’ll also receive targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers. Because your job never seems to get any easier, it’s our goal to keep you up-to-date on the latest backup tips, trends and technologies that will help you get the job done.
Rich Castagna, Editorial Director
You should try looking at the bare metal recovery tools. There are some products there that can accomplish what you're talking about.
HOWEVER, I can tell you that dissimilar restores with bare metal products are about as hard as it gets. They're all working on doing better but it's Windows' architecture that gets in the way.
Editor's note: Do you agree with this expert's response? If you have more to share, post it in one of our .bphAaR2qhqA^0@/searchstorage>discussion forums.
This was first published in March 2004