i hade a compaq proliant 1850r with 5 hardisks,raid 5 is configured as a fault tolerance,and nt 4.0 pdc as a operating system. i installed it 11 months ago and there were other applications were also installed on them.the applications are been constantly up graded and there confihuration are been changed according to users reguirements. now my server is low on space.so i am adding up onother harddisk in raid and expanding the raid. i can take the data backup on tape drive. now the problem is fi the server crashes while expanding raid i can recover data from tape.but the changes done in applications will be lost,i cant afford to loose them. so how can i take backup of data as well as application such that if server creshes and i hade to reinstall it i can regain the same configurations and changes of application also

Given the right backup software, the right tape drive, and a large enough tape volume, all you need to do is specify that you want to do a FULL backup of every drive on your system. Am I missing some detail in your raid system that prevents you from doing that? Checkout this link to Veritas, the people who distribute backup exec: http://www.veritas.com/us/products/backup/NTutility.html A nice, and little know, benefit of performing a full system backup-and-restore is that it also defragments your drive(s).

MAke full backups as ZHivago says , also backup registry. Maybe ARC SERVE is an option as a good backup program I can get ya a try-out to download if you have a DSL or better Internet connection E-Mail me if you need it. Succes

This forum can be torture for people who NEVER use the English language in written corresondences. I'd hate to have to write a lengthy message in Mexican or Chinese, for instance, even though I can project a phoney image of being conversant well enough to order a meal in a restaurant. Even if this is not the issue for you, please indulge me the privelege of conducting a brief monologue. I'm going to post a series of messages which should clarify this matter in greater detail. Hopefully you'll get the larger picture of what's going on in the IT world with backing up mission critical systems. And it's quite probable that I'll learn more than a little bit from other contributors. Few system administrators depend on the built in backup utility in NT. The software of choice is usually Veritas Backup Exec for NT, or ArcServe by Computer Associates. The overall usefullness and features of NT Backup are limited and slow. For your RAID 5 system you need to install some professional grade software, and you should check out these sites specifically. Arcserve: http://www.computerassociates.com/arcserve/product_information.htm http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?ProductID=81412 http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?ProductID=81381 Veritas: http://www.veritas.com/us/products/backupexec/ This package adds additional features for backing up a raid system. Not necessarily Raid 5, as in your case, but if you call the company, they may know exactly what you need to do to accomplish your specific backup needs: http://www.veritas.com/us/products/backupexec/beoptionsnt2000.html#raidirector And they offer a trial copy of their software for free download here: http://www.veritas.com/servlet/Customer/GetCustomerInfo/us/trial.html?PRODCODE=bent2000&SKU=SBE-NTCD-0060&PRODNAME=Backup%20Exec%20Server/Advanced%20Server%20v8.5

See this page for more details about pricing for the Veritas Backup Exec for NT products: http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/Results.asp?grp=BAK&FilteredGroup=&FilteredKeywords=&FilteredMFG=VRI&FilteredSORTORDER=&FILTERBTN.x=16&FILTERBTN.y=16

Read sbout ARCSERVE's features on this page: http://www.computerassociates.com/arcserve/fdb.htm "Provides software tape RAID levels 0, 1, and 5. RAID 5 provides striping with parity. RAID 5, when used with three or more tape drives, ensures successful completion of backup even if one of the tape drives in the group should fail. RAID 1 provides tape mirroring, enabling one copy of media to be moved off-site for disaster protection. RAID 0 and 5 stripe data across multiple drives, enabling concurrent streaming of data to a set of tape drives for high performance." Sounds to me like this is exactly what you want. Here's a site which is offering a pretty decent price: http://206.239.8.214/cdshop/desc/p.757943244007.html

Your Raid 5 system sounds like it's more sophisticated than any I've configured,... maybe not. I administer a RAID 0 system, but that does not currently have NT installed on any of its partitions. The operating system is SCO Unix. I am currently logged onto an NT Workstation computer which can multiboot into Windows 95, Dos 6.2, and 2 separate partitions, each of which has NT Workstation installed. The operations partition for NT does not itself perform any backups. I boot into the Backup-Restore partition to do that. That way, if the Operations installation crashes, I can immediately power down, then power up into the secondary NT OS and perform the restoration from there. I don't know for sure, but I suspect this is not an uncommon scenario, as speed and uncorruptibility are both highly significant issues. Since all you want to do with your Raid 5 system is to do a full backup and then install some more and larger hard drives, I wish I could tell you to use the trial-downloadable software from Veritas. Unfortunately, that version probably does NOT work with a Raid 5 system. The cost of Arcserve 2000 software is pretty steep, but at least you know that it will accomplish exactly what you're setting out to do. I'm not a software saleperson, and I regret being required to endorse anything in this forum. However, when you get into Raid 5 systems, you're talking about mission critical data and uninteruptible services to your clients, no? The NT Backup software isn't going to get you where you're going. So you might as well work through the grief and make the difficult decisions about balancing cost against reliability. Hopefully, you can share the grief with the business owners and managers. You can console yourself that the Arcserve software will not go obsolete in the forseable future. I don't think you'e going to do better than to choose Arcserve 2000 (AE) for your system.