SBS 2008 Attempts Multiple Simultaneous Backups

Mark Berry November 19, 2011

I first had this issue in July 2010. SBS 2008 would attempt to run two identical backups for each one that was scheduled. The duplicate backup would fail with Microsoft-Windows-Backup event 518, “Backup started at ‘[date and time]‘ failed as another backup or recovery is in progress. Please re-run backup.” But the original backup completed fine, so there was no need to re-run it.

Restore a Hyper-V Server to an Optiplex 960

Mark Berry January 7, 2011

Recently I upgraded a small server to run Windows Server 2008 R2 as a Hyper-V host, with Server 2008 R2 as a guest as well. I’ve read that Windows Server Backup can restore to dissimilar hardware. That could be especially helpful in a small environment where no other servers are available. Can I restore the entire Server 2008 host and guest to an Optiplex 960 desktop? How long will it take?

Windows Server Backup: VSS Failure Backing Up Guest VM

Mark Berry September 23, 2010

I’m setting up Windows Server Backup on a Hyper-V host (Windows Server 2008 R2). I want to do an online backup of the guest virtual machine (Windows Server 2003 R2). I’ve already registered the Hyper-V VSS writer per MSKB 958662. So why are my backups failing?

Windows Server Backup: Swapping Target Drives

Mark Berry September 13, 2010

I’m running Window Server Backup on Windows Server 2008 R2. Like a good admin, I swap out destination drives, rotating one drive off site each week.

Server Backup and BitLocker

Mark Berry July 22, 2010

A lot of attention has been given to encrypting laptops because they are often stolen and their drives may contain sensitive company information.

Another popular topic is the need to store backup data off site so you can recover in case of disaster. In the small business arena, this is often accomplished by saving the data to external hard drives that are rotated off site.

But how secure are those backup drives once they leave your office? While a laptop may contain excerpts of data, that server backup drive contains all of your proprietary data, and likely private information about your clients as well. What happens if that drive is lost or stolen, either while en route or while stored off site?

Back Up SQL 2005 without Full-Text Index

Mark Berry July 15, 2010

This script was supposed to be a download from the previous post, Moving Liberum Help Desk to SQL 2005 Express. However, WordPress won’t let me set up a SQL script or a zip file as a download, so I’m putting this out there as a plain old post. I’ll use a <pre> tag so it may overlap the right column, but at least it won’t contain HTML. Cut and paste!

Moving Liberum Help Desk to SQL 2005 Express

Mark Berry July 15, 2010

For the last several years, I’ve been running Liberum Help Desk on SQL 2000 under IIS 6. With my recent upgrade to Small Business Server 2008, I needed to move the Help Desk to SQL 2005 Express and IIS 7. Here are my notes on the process.

Careful with Image-Based Backup of Exchange and Active Directory

Mark Berry May 3, 2010

Any image-based snapshot tool requires extra setup if Exchange or Active Directory is involved.