Active Directory restore

[UniSys]

Hi,


Probably strange question... We use Veeam Endpoint 1.5 to backup our physical Win 2012 server with AD controller. Something went wrong with our Active Directory today, even the Active Directory Users and Computers tool does not start.

Can I use Veeam Exlporer to restore my Active Directory from Veeam Endpoint backup?


thanks and best regards,
UniSys

[CarlMcDade]

I am assuming you only one domain controller?

Veeam Endpoint Backup doesnt come withe application integration that Veeam Backup and Replication has, but essentially gives you a baremetal backup of your physical server.

That been said, there is a couple of Veeam articles that demonstrate recovering from this scenario.

https://www.veeam.com/blog/backing-up-d ... ction.html

https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-recov ... ction.html

Cheers

[UniSys]

Hi CarlMcDade, thanks for quick reply. I will check the articles.

We have two AD controllers, Win 2012 and Win 2003. Active Directory Users and Computers tool does not start on both. Win 2003 is too old and I want to demote it to a member server. But I still want to restore AD on our Win 2012 server.

[CarlMcDade]

Sounds like you've got wider AD problems. Maybe you should'nt use the restore as your first troubleshooting step.

Take a look at the event logs, and check things like DNS and where your FSMO roles are held

Cheers

[UniSys]

Sure, CarlMcDade, I am trying to solve the issue other ways also.

Restoring Active Directory from Veeam Endpoint backup is kind of "plan B". And a new AD domain as a worst case scenario...

[Mike Resseler]

Nikolay,

Carl is pointing you certainly in the right direction. Normally I would advise you to simply do the restore but since you have that 2003 in your environment. This also means you are at maximum forest/ domain functional level of 2003. And that you won't receive support from MS anymore because of this.

Do you receive an error notification when trying to open users and computers MMC? Something along the lines of "MMC cannot open the file C:\WINDOWS\system32\dsa.msc". And if not, is there a notification in event viewer?

[Dima P.]

Agree. The first step would be to investigate the AD issues. In general, VEB/VAW support AD item level recovery thru Veeam Explore just keep in mind that Windows Server 2003 is a not supported OS in terms of backup.