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Can you move Win2003 SBS Std. to new hardware?

I have a client running an old server with dual PII CPU and old 9 and 18 GB SCSI HDD. I want to move them onto a new white box, P4 with IDE RAID-1.

As you can't have a second server join the SBS domain how can you move the settings AD, Exchange...

If there is anyone that has done this with very differnet hardware I would like some pointers.

If this is not possible what could I do about moving AD and Exchange to the new server?

Thanks Arvid

harleyjd

There's an article which I had a few weeks ago but can no longer find which talks about running an in-place upgrade, but moving the system to the new box after it reboots, but before it starts the hardware detection.

So I'd do something like:

add drivers for RAID card,
start upgrade, let it check disks and copy files. At reboot, shut it dowm, move the HDD to the new server.

boot from floppy, run Ghost, and image the stuff over to the RAID array

cross fingers,
boot new server, let it run the detection routines...

I'm going to be trying this myself soonish...

sriwi

The best scenario is to basically build another server, promote it to the active directory, transfer all the roles across, install exchange, moved all the mail boxes accross, after that removed the old server

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21103159/Moving-to-windows-2003-Server-from-SBS-2000.html

have a look at my case, i did that and everything running smoothly now.

Cheers

harleyjd

Sorry, sriwi - arvid already covered that. He has an SBS 4.5 box, so it is not possible to join another server to maintain the user database or Exchange structure. The only options are complete rebuilds (which is how I make money - 8 - 10 days for a full systems upgrade) or an in-place upgrade with all the rist that entails.

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sriwi

not true, i have just removed all of the FSMO roles from sbs 2000 to my standard 2000 server, we can change it to any server we like, have a look at my post.

probably the 8-10 days could be cut to 1-2 days if i were doing it.

cheers

sriwi

What is true is that you can't add another SBS to the same SBS, SBS have to be the first server in the network, that is all, or otherwise, it have to nominate another domain name if you want to have 2 SBS co-exist.

aalmstrom

ASKER

I want to thank you all for comments. It was as I suspected, a complete re-build and manual moving of all details.

I am going to leave the topic here a little long just incase someone else has any thoughts.

I just had a though, When you install SBS you start with a standard 2003 server. I don't take it you could join a standard server to the domain and somehow export the AD preior to installing the SBS services / applications and registring it?
This was just a thought as I know that you can have other standard server in the same domain as a SBS.

Arvid