Moving w2k3 OS to another computer

[Gabriel]

Hi all,
I would like you recommendation on a issue I have on one of the clients.
The client has a Windows 2003 Server machine (a very old machine - no raid nothing fancy). the computer is a sole DC, Exchange, Filer.
What I would like to know is What is the SAFEST and FASTEST ways to move the installation to a new computer.

I would like to know if anyone has done this succefully.


Please post your suggestions here - Thank you all,
Gabriel

[CeeBee]

I have moved few Win2K installations, I would *assume* Win2003 is nothing different. Before you start make sure you have a fallback plan - best a ghost image of the hard drive *and* a verified full backup of the server. Also unplug the network cable before you start.
Depending on the time frame you have, you could image the existing drive to a spare drive as a secondary backup, or just image the existing drive to the new drive. If for some reason it won't work, you can always do an in-place install. But then you might have to restore the AD from the backup, in which case you boot the server in AD restore mode.
If the new server has a RAID controller, make sure you install the RAID drivers prior to copying to the RAID, otherwise it might refuse to boot (ghost to an IDE drive, boot from it on the new platform, install the RAID drivers, then image the IDE drive to the RAID array).
If nothing goes wrong and depending on the amount of data you might be back up and running with a downtime of 30' to 2h... I have done it a couple of times in under 1h.

[Gabriel]

Thank you CeeBee for your reply -
it sure shed some light on the situation

What I would like to know if anyone done it with V2I (we have licenses but we never treied to move the installation to a different hardware computer).

Again - thank you for your assitance,
Gabriel