backing up guest OS to USB drives

[Moshe Raab, Ph.D.]

I am running SBS2008 as a guest on Windows 2008 R2 with hyper-v.
i attached 2 USB drives to the host box. and intended to alternate them once
a week for backups. in the disk manager i created the partitions on them and
marked them as offline.
I then went into the guest OS, assigned drive letters (V and W) and
configured the backup to use both drives. i then unplugged one of the drives
and tried to reboot the guest OS.
The VM would not boot since it reported that it was missing one of the
resources.
How can I configure this setup to use alternated USB backup drives without
having to reconfigure the Guest and rebooting every week

(Backing up the entire VHD is impractical because I can not do file or email
restores)

[Charlie Russel - MVP]

1.) UN-configure the backup in SBS so that you can complete the rest of the
tasks.
2.) In the Parent (host) partition, open disk manager (diskmgmt.msc) and put
the drives online, give them partitions, and format as NTFS. Mount as a
drive letter.
3.) In Hyper-V Manager, create a new VHD, fixed size, and point it to the
drive letter of the USB drive.
4.) Repeat #3 for the other USB.
5.) Open the settings for the SBS VM, and select the SCSI adapter in the
left hand pane.
6.) In the right pane, click Hard Drive and click Add.
7.) Browse to one of the VHDs from steps 3&4 and then click OK when you're
done.
8.) Repeate Step 7 for the other USB drive.
9.) Go into the SBS Manager, and configure the backup, pointing to the two
disks that now show from steps 7&8.
10.) Use the Hyper-V Manager to remove the VHDsfrom the SBS VM, and then
unmount the USB and take offsite.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel

"Moshe Raab, Ph.D." <bic...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:FE7AC971-BC94-422A...@microsoft.com...

[Moshe Raab, Ph.D.]

thanks for your reply,
based on what I understood for your reply, I will need to repeat this
process each time I want to backup?
or will I just be able to attach the USB drive that I want to backup to and
everything will work? If I remove the drive from the VM, how will SBS backup
see the drives in order to backup?
(I generally swap the USB drives once a week, that means that one drive is
connected for the week and then replaced by the other drive)

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <Cha...@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote in message
news:u2m0ewhb...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

[Charlie Russel - MVP]

Once you hot add the drive, using Hyper-V Manager, Settings of VM, Add Disk
it should be visible to the SBS VM and ready to go. As long as you use the
Hyper-V Manager to add and remove the VHDs once a week, you should be fine.
(This is undoubtedly scriptable using PowerShell and WMI, but I don't have a
script off the top of my head.)

Check my blog later today for more detailed steps, with a few pictures. I'm
in the process of writing it up right now.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel

"Moshe Raab, Ph.D." <bic...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:BFC79663-BAF7-4721...@microsoft.com...

[Moshe Raab, Ph.D.]

but this would require stopping and restarting the server once a week. not
very practical in a production environmnet
is there a "hot" solution?

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <Cha...@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote in message

news:eYiZUBsb...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

[Charlie Russel - MVP]

no, it does NOT require starting and stopping the server. It's a hot
add/remove. See my blog post. All this is done with all servers running. You
_may_ need to stop the server once only, to add the SCSI adapter if it isn't
there already. Once the SCSI adapter is there, you can add/remove disks
without stopping anything.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel

"Moshe Raab, Ph.D." <bic...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:9ABB773F-4834-4AB1...@microsoft.com...

[Moshe Raab, Ph.D.]

I wrote the script below, to identify and attah the SCSI drives. the
non-existant drive is removed and the newly attached drive is added.
however, the disk manager in the guest OS does not see it and the guest OS
becomes slightly hosed; I cannot shut down, or run the backups. Do you have
any idea what I am doing wrong?
thanks for your help

Import-Module "C:\Program Files\modules\HyperV\Hyperv.psd1"

$strComputer = "."
$BackupDriveV= "V:"
$BackupDriveW= "W:"
$BackupDriveVVHD= "V:\Virtual Backup Disk V.vhd"
$BackupDriveWVHD= "W:\Virtual Backup Disk W.vhd"
$Server = "SBS 2008"

write-host "Removing Drive: " $BackupDriveV
Remove-VMdrive $Server 0 0 -SCSI
#Remove-VMdrive $Server 0 0 -SCSI -DiskOnly
write-host "Done!"

write-host "Removing Drive: " $BackupDriveW
Remove-VMdrive $Server 0 1 -SCSI
#Remove-VMdrive $Server 0 1 -SCSI -DiskOnly
write-host "Done!"

$colItems = get-wmiobject -class "Win32_LogicalDisk" -namespace "root\CIMV2"
`
-computername $strComputer

foreach ($objItem in $colItems) {
write-host "Caption: " $objItem.Caption
write-host "Name: " $objItem.Name
write-host

if ($objItem.DeviceID -eq $BackupDriveV)
{
write-host "Adding VHD: " $BackupDriveVVHD
Add-VMDisk $Server 0 0 $BackupDriveVVHD -SCSI
}
elseif ($objItem.DeviceID -eq $BackupDriveW)
{
write-host "Adding VHD: " $BackupDriveWVHD
Add-VMDisk $Server 0 1 $BackupDriveWVHD -SCSI
}
}

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <Cha...@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote in message

news:OA5ko9sb...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...