I work in a 24/7 operation which uses a single server running Windows 2003 server for our database. The server has an 80GB hard drive which is currently 3/4 full. I have purchased two 1TB hard drives that I would like to migrate everything on to (everything including the OS and data).

I have a copy of the DEFT distribution with FTK Imager.

Can I do the following and get it to work:

1) while the server is still running, run the DEFT CD and get a live acquisition dd.

2) boot DEFT on another system and image the dd to one of the new hard drives.

3) take down the server and swap in the new hard drive with the image and boot the server back up as normal

If there is another distribution that can do a better/faster live acquisition, please let me know.

Thank you,

Daman

Consider a windows forum, they'll be able to give you better information.

That being said you can't, or actually probably shouldn't, do a live migration- you'll end up with all kinds of corruptions if users and processes are still writing data. You'll certainly not be able to use DEFT in such a way without booting it, which will mean taking down your server.

Honestly if it was me, I would take the server down in a maintenance period and just ghost it.

You can clone a windows server using live state tools. I know of no way to use any linux to do a live state with dd.

There may be a linux version of vmware converter or some other p2v that can run live state to get an image but then you'd have to convert it.

MS offers many ways to make a live state image to be used to restore. See their web page for tech help on that.

I was looking at this thread because I have a 2000 server that I'd like to do the same thing with. I wonder how this would impact the original drive being part of a hardware raid ?