Well, I’ve learned some – but I’ve got a long way to go. One thing that I’ve learned it that my System Restore “Add On” on Server 2003 is worthless (it’s broken); once the active directory is installed it doesn’t work anymore. So, I’ve developed a new approach – and I’m diggin’ it! As someone who knew nothing about IIS nor Exchange a week ago – at this point – I really need to be able to break things and put them back together without losing countless hours reinstalling. The web said you could install System restore on Server 2003 and, well, it “kinda” worked. The minute you install the Active Directory it fails to function. So…..

Here’s what I do, now, to get back to an “uncorrupted” state. I’m using an old 80 gig hard drive and I’ve split into two partitions of roughly equal size. I’m using some Acronis tools to help me along the way. Specifically, two programs have proven indispensable. They are:

• Acronis Partition Expert 2003, and
• Acronis TrueImage v9.1 Enterprise Server

I’d read somewhere, as I recall, that Partition Magic doesn’t work with Server 2003 – not sure that’s correct. But the above work great. This is what I do: with my hard drive divided I boot into Server 2003 and use Acronis Partition Expert to create a primary partition (do not set the thing to “Active” – of course) and then I format the unallocated space with the NTFS file system. Now, there’s a bit of an issue with Server 2003 seeing the new partition. Go to “manual mode” and change, or set, the drive letter on the new parition. Boink! Server 2003 sees the partition. I park my tools there, as well as images of my server 2003 parition in various stages of completion. And you don’t even need an Acronis recovery disc with this version of TrueImage – you can restore right from the storage partition without any bootable media. I don’t recall having seen that in other versions. Without going into a lengthy explanation you add your backup partition as a “Secure Zone”. Once this is done, you can hit F11 on boot and enter a standard Acronis recovery screen – the damned thing is so intuitive that it doesn’t warrant any big explanation. The point is, I can back up my server in various points of completeion and not – as I’ve said – have to screw around starting from square one…makes learning a lot less painful.