Saturday, July 24, 2010

Windows Home Server Restore

Last weekend, I decided to upgrade the hard drive on our Dell XPS m1330.  I was pleasently surprised how easy it was to remove and replace the hard drive from the laptop.  Since I use Windows Home Server to back up all of our computers, I was expecting a similarly easy time to restore the data to the new hard drive.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

I booted the computer with the Window Home Server PC restore CD, with the laptop connected to the network, and attempted to have the restore software find the sever, but the software wasn't able to find the server.  It turns out that the restore CD didn't have the drivers for the ethernet interface.  The restore software can load any needed drivers from a floppy or usb drive.  I copied the contents of the CD that contains the drivers for the m1330 onto a thumb drive, and when the software searched for any needed drivers, it wasn't able to find any.

It turns out that Dell didn't put the ATA or ethernet drivers on the driver CD for the m1330.  I was able to download those drivers manually and put them on a thumb drive, and was able to restore the data to the new drive.

Now, I will just label the and keep the thumb drive for whenever I need to restore that computer

1 comment:

  1. For painless reinstalls of WHS client backups, try this:

    http://breakinghomeserver.com/2009/11/30/whs-client-restore-v1-2/

    It doesn't matter now - any PC I have, x64 or just driver-problematic like the Dell Studio's, this X:\Files ISO will get it connected to your WHS in a snap.

    ReplyDelete

Empowering Family Legacy: How I Transitioned to Self-Hosting with Gramps Web

For several years now, I've been maintaining a genealogy website containing information from both my and my wife's family history. O...