Since years I use vshadow + robocopy to backup data partitions to a remote disk (connected thru iSCSI). This is really a very efficient method.
This allow me to have a "perfect" copy. Open files are copied without any problem, as well as ACL and everything. In case of major disk fault, I just have to plug the remote disk in replacement of the faulty one. This is way much faster than recovering from a backup (but I only have the last backup on remote disk. Other backups are done with Backp Exec in a more traditionnal way, with retention etc).
My problem is: I never managed to do a working backup of a live Windows system partition.
I tested with Windows 2003.
I tested tons of possibilities, all of them ended to a boot until ctrl+alt+del. I then enter user+password and... nothing. The desktop never appear. The machine is up, the services are up (even TSE is okay, but I can't login), the machine respond to pings, etc. But no way to login.
Example of what I did:
1. I use identical disks
2. I duplicate the source disk with dd, to the destination disk (this allow to have the bootloader, the same partition, etc, just to be 100% sure)
3. I start the source computer
4. I attach the remote destination disk with iSCSI (also done with a local disk: nothing better). Mapped to drive H:
5. I take a snapshot of the source disk, and map it to a drive letter:
vshadow.exe -p c:\
vshadow -el={edbed95e-7e8d-11d8-9d01-505054503030},g:
6. I copy the files:
robocopy g:\ h:\ /mir /is /it /copyall /r:0 /x /v /fp /np /log:c:\robocopy.log /xd "g:\System Volume Information" g:\windows\Prefetch /xf g:\pagefile.sys g:\hyberfile.sys
7. I look at the generated log: no error, no warning
8. I stop Windows
9. I plug the destination disk in place of the previous local disk
10. I boot, but I can't login
I also tested without copying the registry. Nothing better.
Anyone have an idea to solve this problem ?
