Restoring systemstate to alternate location with ntbackup

August 15, 2007

We recently ran ntbackup on a Windows 2003 x64 server, and backed up the

(system) C: drive and systemstate. Then we used ntbackup to restore this

data onto an external drive (F:) with the intent of using it as a boot

device replacement for our C: drive. (Yes we know other changes would be

needed to F: before attempting this.) However, when we checked the restored

data on the second drive, registry files in F:\WINDOWS\system32\config were

missing. Also, when starting the restore, we receive the warning message:

"Not all system state data will be restored when re-directed to an alternate

location. This is an advanced restore option which may aid in recovering

specific damaged system files."

As a result, we are unable to restore our backup to an alternate location.

Does anyone have insight into why this occurs? The message above suggests

there is an alternate restore technique that we could use that would restore

all of the system state data to an alternate location. What is the right way

to do this?

--

Ivan

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