About preparing to recover from a disaster by using IDR

When a disaster occurs, you can use IDR to return the computer to its pre-disaster state. Recovering a computer is a multi-step process that involves both manual and automatic processes. To recover a computer, you must follow these steps in order:

Caution:

Disconnect any storage area network (SAN) or cluster that is attached to the computer being recovered; otherwise, the hard drives on those computers may also be repartitioned and reformatted.

Plan any hardware changes to the computer to be recovered.

See About changing hardware in the computer to be recovered.
Review additional requirements for IBM computers if the computer to be recovered is an IBM computer.

See About using IDR to recover IBM computers.
Start the computer using the bootable media created with the IDR Preparation Wizard to start the recovery process.
Use the Disaster Recovery Wizard to restore the computer to its pre-disaster state and restore the data files.

See About recovering a computer and using the Disaster Recovery Wizard.

Note:

Boot managers, such as System Commander or the OS/2 Boot Manager, cannot be restored with IDR. Boot managers are usually installed at a very low level that Backup Exec cannot protect. For example, the OS/2 Boot Manager resides in its own hard drive partition that Backup Exec cannot access. Because of the many different boot managers available, you may not be able to restart the computer after an IDR recovery, even though the operating system was restored. If this happens, re-installing the boot manager should fix the problem.

Before recovering the computer, note the following:

There must be enough disks to restore all of the critical system disks. A disk is considered critical if it is required for the computer to start successfully.
The storage capacity of each critical disk must be greater than or equal to the corresponding original disk. Disk geometries, which may also be called disk parameters, must be compatible.
Floppy and CD devices cannot be external PC-card drives. Because external PC-card devices are not supported during the GUI-mode Windows Setup phase, they cannot be used to access data, and recovery cannot be completed.
If a *.dr file is unavailable for the computer being restored, you can still use IDR to recover the computer, but you must first manually restore the non-critical partition information, including utility partitions.
IDR does not recover software mirrored volumes or any kind of software RAID with the auto-partitioning feature. You must manually apply the mirror with the Disk Manager. In addition, hardware RAID components must be set up before you perform the disaster recovery.