tjobrien21
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Nutty idea - imaging via the .RAID controller
Ok, here's the deal: I have to build (3) Windows Server 2003 boxes quickly some time in the next few days. Symantec Ghost is doing the 'unsupported operating system' thing, and it occurred to me.. Since all three computers are built from the exact same hardware, and the system drive is a mirror set off a hardware RAID controller, it seems to me I could do the following things. I guess the question is, does it look like this will work?
1. Load Server 2003 to the computer.
2. Remove one of the mirror'd drives and put in the other computer.. Regen the set. Put a new drive in the first computer, regen the set. Do it once more for the third machine.
3. Rename each machine, then join them the the Active Directory
I know the process may take some time, the main issue for me is that I spend my time doing other things for my customer rather than sitting in front of the machines loading software. Long as the OS restore can be done unattended, that's a good thing.
So, what do y'all think?
Thanks.
Tim
1. Load Server 2003 to the computer.
2. Remove one of the mirror'd drives and put in the other computer.. Regen the set. Put a new drive in the first computer, regen the set. Do it once more for the third machine.
3. Rename each machine, then join them the the Active Directory
I know the process may take some time, the main issue for me is that I spend my time doing other things for my customer rather than sitting in front of the machines loading software. Long as the OS restore can be done unattended, that's a good thing.
So, what do y'all think?
Thanks.
Tim
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cfairley
Also, make sure you match up the disks correcly. What I mean is that if you pull disk 1 from the mirror set, make sure that it goes in the cooresponding slot 1 in the server to be built. Yes, I know this is common knowledge, but just though I'd mention it. BTW, I used this approach last month when build a test lab for our 2003 upgrade.
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Yes, that's right, you will need to change the SID. The way I used it was that I took two raid drives from two different production DCs and inserted them in separate test servers. I was not making indenticals of the same server for production use. Sorry for any confussion.