Scenario: Needed to restore a ShadowProtect Image I had taken of a Small Business Server 2003, stored on an external USB hard drive. The target for this restore was a newly created Citrix XenServer 5.6. The restore in question required me to have 2 virtual disks.
Some of the problems I encountered:
- The 3 disk limitation of unmodified Windows Xen implementations. In my scenario I originally wanted to create three separate vDisks, and attach the USB Backup Drive to my container for the restore. This was not possible, as when booting into my ShadowProtect Restore Environment I did not have the XenTools installed. This meant I was limited to a maximum of 3 "storage targets" within the VM (The limit is 4, however the CD/DVD Drive counts as one). I would imagine this could be gotten around by attaching vdisks one at a time when the Removable Storage needed to be attached to the VM.
- The presentation of the ShadowProtect IT Edition USB Key to the Xen Virtual Machine. I figured that I could simply pass my USB key through to the VM, use it to boot ShadowProtect and have it automatically detect the License Key so that I could perform the restore. Unfortunately as Jack has noted to us during the sales/tech pitches, the License is locked to a particular USB Key. When I attach the removable storage of the USB Key to the host VM, it presents in different format and the license is not recognized as valid.
- Network drivers in XenServer 5.6 with IT Edition 3.6 - for some reason these just refused to work. I tried several attempts to inject the drivers within the XP/2003 restore environment however these did not seem to get picked up by ShadowProtect RE as it was initializing. At this stage it was getting close to 10pm and I needed a solution quick. I'm certain that if it were business hours I would be able to get in contact with SP and find the correct way to inject these drivers into the RE. I did toy with the idea of injecting the drivers into the BOOT.WIM for the Win 7/Vista environment but decided it was not a good idea to screw with one of only 2 USB keys we have.
Long story short, after my driver injection attempts I noted Jack had mentioned in the past that the "3 day unlocked" version of ShadowProtect IT edition was going to be released at some point. The IT Edition FAQ seemed to suggest that this was still coming and I couldn't find a link on the Australian website. However I did find that the European site for ShadowProtect had an active site: http://www.storagecraft.eu/lp-backup-recovery/iso-download-for-active-subscribers/shadowprotect-it-edition-3-day.html I went here and downloaded the 3 day ISO and ran this up, no problems at all. Interestingly enough I found that they provided version 3.5 of the IT Edition which did not have any issues with the XenServer 5.6 Network Drivers.
Hope the link proves useful, and might save you the hour or two I spent trying to find workarounds.
