Windows Server 2008 R2 bare metal restore to different hardware
- by S Falken
Scenario:
I have a Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 installation whose main disk drive is now 7 years old and showing signs of age. For the last couple of months it's been displaying increased errors and requirements to run checkdisk. I have successfully created a bare metal restore (BMR) image on a separate data drive on the server, which can be seen from the Windows Recovery console; I tested it by booting to and using the Windows Server installation DVD's recovery utilities.
The BMR image includes the system drive with boot partition, system state, and the D:\ drive of the server, which is where I have followed the practice of installing any program that does not require a C:\ installation path. Therefore, the BMR includes both the C:\ and D:\ drives, system state and boot partition.
The C:\ drive is a 7-year old Seagate 160GB. The D:\ drive is a rather newer 120GB Western Digital. I have purchased a 128GB solid state Samsung 830 that I want to restore these partitions to, using the BMR.
Questions:
In the above-referenced article, Microsoft seems to be indicating that I am only able to restore to like-kind hardware, which doesn't help at all and is difficult to believe. Is this really true?
I've cleaned these drives up and minimized the size of partition they require. C:\ will need about a 70GB partition, and the data on D:\ will need about 50GB. Will Windows Server backup allow me to restore the BMR to newly-created partitions on the SSD, discarding extra space?
I don't need a "how-to": I just need an "is it possible".
Justification:
Before posting this question, I checked ServerFault articles with the following titles, but none of them were about this exact scenario:
Restore SBS 2008 Backup to Same Hardware but Different Disk Configuration
Restoring Windows Server 2008 to different hardware - OEM License
Restoring II6 server after a hardware failure
windows 2008 r2 fail to restore
Domain controller failed to restore using windows backup tools
How does restore to dissimilar hardware work?
Migrating Windows 2008 R2 from a PC to a different PC
TFS 2005 Server restore from one hardware to another
I also researched Microsoft but only received an oblique answer which was not precisely aimed at my question, at the following URL: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249694#method3
