Important Notes on System State

Before restoring the System State, please read the following notes carefully.

• The System State should be restored in its entirety: restoring selected files is not recommended.
• Although incremental backups of the System State can be configured, NetBackup always performs a full backup. Therefore, only the most recent backup of the System State must be restored.
• For Windows 2000 systems, Service Pack 2 is required.
• Do not redirect a System State restore. System State is computer-specific and restoring it to an alternate computer can result in an unusable system.
• Do not cancel a System State restore operation. Canceling this operation could leave the system unusable.
• When restoring the System State to a domain controller, the Active Directory must not be running. Refer to the following procedure for directions on restoring the Active Directory.

  To restore the System State

1. If you want to restore the Active Directory, or if the system to which you are restoring is a Windows domain controller, restart the system and press F8 during the boot process. Otherwise, begin with step 4 below.

   F8 brings up a startup options menu.

2. From the startup options, select Directory Services Restore Mode and continue the boot process.
3. Make sure the NetBackup Client Service has started. (Select Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services to check.)
4. Start the Backup, Archive, and Restore client interface. Click Select for Restore, and place a checkmark next to System State.
5. From the Actions menu, choose Start Restore of Marked Files.
6. From the Restore Marked Files dialog, select Restore everything to its original location and Overwrite the existing file.

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    Caution    Do not redirect the System State restore to a different host. System State is computer-specific: restoring it to a different computer can result in an unusable system.

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7. Click Start Restore.
8. If you have more than one domain controller in the network and you want Active Directory replicated to the other domain controllers, you must perform an authoritative restore of the Active Directory after the NetBackup restore job completes.

   To perform an authoritative restore of the Active Directory, run the Microsoft ntdsutil utility after you have restored the System State data but before the server is restarted. An authoritative restore ensures that the data is replicated to all of the servers.

   For more information about authoritative restore and the ntdsutil utility, please refer to your Microsoft documentation.

9. Reboot your system before performing subsequent restore operations.

   If this is a domain controller and you have booted into Directory Services Restore Mode, reboot into normal mode when the restore is complete.