Chapter 5 - Preparing for and Performing Recovery

This chapter describes what you can do to:

• Reduce the possibility of problems.
• Recover from problems when they occur.

There is no way to make a computer running Windows NT failure proof. You can only make the computer more failure resistant. A memory module, cabling, or controller failure can corrupt data on any disk. In this event, the only option is to restore from a tape or a backup server that contains a copy of the data.

These are some things that you can do to make it easier to recover from problems:

• Develop plans and procedures for recovering from failures before you have one.
• Create and test floppy disks that enable you to restart the computer when you are having trouble starting from the system partition.
• Maintain software configuration information for your computers running Windows NT. At a minimum, keep track of the version of the operating system installed on each computer, including service packs and hotfixes.
• Record the hardware configuration of each computer running Windows NT, especially the disk configurations.

The topics covered in this chapter are:

• Maintaining configuration and other forms of information.
• Understanding ARC pathnames.
• Creating floppy disks to use to start the computer.
• Training and testing.
• Restoring disk information.
• Configuring and using mirror sets and stripe sets with parity.
• Using an uninterruptable power supply.

This chapter also describes using utilities on the Windows NT Server Resource Kit CD and the Windows NT Server CD to back up and restore critical data. Planning what utilities to use is as important as knowing how to use them. There is more information about these utilities in Chapter 7, "Disk, File System, and Backup Utilities."

Chapter 4, "Planning a Reliable Configuration," discusses planning what to do before failures occur, such as:

• Deciding what hardware and software to procure.
• Developing your plan for doing backups.
• Developing training plans, disaster plans, and contingency plans.

These are some points to consider:

• Investigate the various utilities for doing a task, and decide which one(s) to use for which situations.
• When you have decided which utilities you want to use, prepare your floppy disks.
• Know how to use the utilities that you decide to use.
• Practice recovering from the common problems described in this chapter and in Chapter 6, "Troubleshooting Startup and Disk Problems."