Cloning whole computer

[guyzk1]

Hi There,

I have a server with windows server 2003 installed. The HD's are 4 SCSI HDD's in RAID format.
One of the drives is malfunctioning and there is a lot of very important data on this computer including programs that I don't have their installation disks.
I don't want to risk anything so I need a good solution.
What I want to do (and I want to know if it is possible) is to create a full system clone and move it all to a different computer. I need it to be a 1:1 clone that I could use any program installed on the all computer including all the databases on the new computer.
Once I confirm that everything is working I will replace the damaged SCSI drive and move the clone back to the server.
Is there such a software?

 

[MindoverMaster]

There is clonezilla. You can not run the OS on a different motherboard. But you could put it as a secondary drive and read the data off of it. I believe. What RAID are you running?

 

[Lexluethar]

Clonezilla is what you want.

As long as you aren't using RAID 0 (which with 4 drives you shouldn't be) clonezilla will only see one drive because of the RAID array. Then clone that one drive (which is physically 4 drives but logically one).

Then replace the drive.

Although depending on your RAID controller, it should have firmware that would rebuild the array. I have a cheap ass raid controller and it has this function, i would hope a server raid controller that is running server 2003 would have this option as well.

Worst case scenario just make a copy of the entire drive from windows onto an external drive to be extra safe.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Yeah, you should be able to rebuilt the array. Only in RAID 0, you can't.

 

[Lexluethar]

That's what i'm thinking, rebuilding the array with the firmware should do this for you. It detects when you are losing a drive and should allow you to replace the drive then rebuild the array.