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Is there nothing like "creating a repair disk" for Win Server 2008 R2 SP1? Or am I just missing it? Under Win7 I do just enter "Repair" and it finds "create a repair disk".

Sorry - but I am not a professional Admin. Just using the server for my development environment.

If there is no repair disk, is there something similar or something I should create in case I do have a system failure? Sure, a full backup is done, but anything else?

--- Update as of comment AndreasM ---

Actually I did have a "crash" on my Win2008 installation, it simply did not start anymore. When I tried to repair the OS, it did find one of my updates. But it was asking for a repair disk in order to "install" the backups.

Eventually I ended up re-installing the OS, but now I want make sure this does not happen again. I did have a backup of my C: partition, but it did not help me in this case - either because I was simply to dumb to get things rights or for some other reasons.

So is a backup of the System partition not enough?

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use the Windows Server Backup facilities to create a backup that's able to do a "Bare Metal Recovery". You can then use the install disk to restore from such a backup (usually a hd attached to the system) – AndreasM Nov 21 '11 at 10:01
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If you used the "Windows Server Sicherung" (in German) you have the option of making "Bare-Metal-Recovery", "Systemstatus" and the local volumes part of the recovery. I used a normal hd as target. I had to restore recently and it worked quite well with the installation dvd. BRM must be included though. As for "updates" and "repair disk" I never saw those terms referenced in WinServer 2008. Booting is usually done with the install dvd (as I see it) – AndreasM Nov 21 '11 at 10:59
I'll check this one out, thanks so far.... – Horst Walter Nov 21 '11 at 11:16
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If you backup to a local hd, make sure you assign a drive letter. You can backup without a drive letter, but restore will not work because the restore program bmrui.exe will crash if the hd doesn't have a drive letter. – AndreasM Nov 21 '11 at 11:37
I found this comprehensive article here - due to your help I now know what I am looking for ;-) technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/… – Horst Walter Nov 21 '11 at 12:13
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The Windows Server Installation disc contains everything needed to restore a "Bare Metal Backup" created by Windows Server Backup. If you're using a different backup solution you'll have to find/follow the directions for that.

The Install disc also has some tools, but they're hidden away. You can push Ctrl + F8 at the welcome screen (just after booting the install CD) to get a command prompt. From there you can run a variety of tools like chkdsk, dsim, sfc, and others.

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Yep, but I did never notice the "Bare Metal Backup" checkbox because it simply did not mean anything to me.... now I am wiser ;-) I'll use our input to try it .... Will me save some time in the future. – Horst Walter Nov 21 '11 at 15:03
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