Task 4.7: Restoring Data from a Backup

Every diligent administrator performs regular backups. An excellent administrator also performs practice restores from the backups on a regular basis. Unless you restore data from your backups and verify its integrity, you can never be sure that you can perform appropriate recovery in a real disaster situation.

Scenario

You are responsible for the protection of mission-critical information. You need to be prepared to recover corrupted or lost data files from any day within the last week. You must validate your backup routine by restoring data and verifying its integrity to satisfy these concerns.

Scope of Task

Duration

This task should take 30 minutes.

Setup

You recently established a daily backup routine and it seems to be running well. You must validate this by performing a practice restore and then testing the restored data.

Caveat

Practice restores should happen only on offline systems, not in a production environment. It could be disastrous to restore old data over new data, so always perform practice restores to a different location.

Consider the confidentiality requirements of the restored data. If a relatively untrusted administrator is capable of performing these restores, it would be quite easy for them to access confidential information. Always treat your backup media as highly confidential and allow only the most trusted administrators the rights and access to perform these restores.

Consider the appropriate security for storage, or the appropriate destruction, for security purposes, of this restored content.

Procedure

For this task, you will restore several files from an earlier backup to a different location. You will then validate the integrity of that restored content by mounting the data with the appropriate application and determining its readability.

Equipment Used

For this task, you must have:

• Windows Server 2003 system
• Administrator or Backup Operator access

Details

Identifying Content to Restore

1. Log on to the Windows Server 2003 system as the Local Administrator.

2. Launch NT Backup by choosing Start ⇒ Programs ⇒ Accessories ⇒ System Tools ⇒ Backup.

3. Select the Restore And Manage Media tab.

4. Expand the folder structure of your earlier backup. Identify and select several files and/or folders to restore.

In the real world, you would select the most critical files to restore. These would be the most important files to validate and verify. For practice purposes, choose files that you are certain are backed up.

Be aware of the amount of data you are restoring to the system and the amount of free space on the disk you will be restoring to.

5. In the Restore Files To drop-down list, select Alternate Location, and then identify a folder on a drive with sufficient free space to receive the restored content.

Do not select the original location to restore the old data to. This would overwrite newer data with old data. Select to restore to a different location.

In the example, the alternate location selected is the C:AA folder.

Initializing the Restore

1. Click Start Restore. You will be presented with the Confirm Restore dialog box. Click Advanced.

2. The Restore Security check box indicates that, assuming the file system on the target volume supports it (in other words, if the target volume is formatted with NTFS), the original NTFS permissions will be reapplied to the restored content.

If this remains enabled, you may not have sufficient permissions to test the content’s validity.

The two other active check boxes indicate that you want to take any selected folders that were backed up as mount points and restore them as mount points (as opposed to restoring them as just empty folders), and reconnect the mount points’ underlying content to the mount point. Leave the default configuration intact and click OK.

3. In the Confirm Restore dialog box, click OK to proceed with the restore. The Restore Progress dialog box opens, followed by the Restore Is Complete message.

4. Click Report to view the restore report. Notice that it has been appended to the original backup report. Scroll to the bottom of the report to view the restore statistics.

5. Close Notepad.

Testing the Restored Data

1. Launch Explorer.

2. Expand the left pane sufficiently to view the restored content.

In this case, the restored content was placed in C:AA.

3. Mount one or more restored files with the appropriate application to validate the restored file’s integrity.

When the files are mounted properly, or your restored executables launch properly, you have confirmed the validity of your backup.

4. Close all applications.

Criteria for Completion

You have completed this task when you have successfully restored data from an earlier backup and then tested the validity of the restored content.