Happy Halloween folks, and in usual Andysworld! tradition, Carved pumpkins this year!
Carved Pumpkins for Oct 31 2011
I’m in the middle of stripping the Fish House door!
Carved Pumpkins for Oct 31 2011
Archive for October, 2011
Happy Halloween!
Monday, October 31st, 2011Happy Screme Egg Day!
Monday, October 31st, 2011
Cadbury Screme Egg wrapper!
Andy ate it!
Happy Halloween
Happy Halloween Folks, Carved your Pumpkins or Jack-O-Laterns yet!
New HD Video Bare Metal Recovery of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011: Part 2 How to Restore Microsoft Small Business Server 2011
Sunday, October 30th, 2011Okay, so we have a Full Backup of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011, approx 20GB on our Western Digital Worldbook NAS (\\nas\backup).
(see this blog – New HD Video Bare Metal Recovery of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011: Part 1 How to Backup Microsoft Small Business Server 2011)
The next bit could not have been easier, we insert the Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 DVD into the DVD ROM drive, Boot from the DVD as if we are going to install a copy of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 on the server, you are already probably familiar with this step, but we Click the ‘Repair your Computer‘. This procedure WILL only work, if restoring to “like for like” hardware as the original server backup. Follow the Wizard, selecting the network location of the backup.
In this video, I’m restoring to a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine. Initially to prove, that I’m restoring to Bare Metal Server, (no OS is pre-installed), I’ve booted the virtual machine with NO Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 DVD ROM Media in the DVD ROM drive, and you can see it tries to PXE Boot from the Network, at the next reboot, I’ve inserted the media, to boot and start the Server Bare Metal Restore from the Network copy.
DO NOT TRY THIS PROCEDURE ON A PRODUCTION LIVE SERVER!
YOU WILL ERASE AND DESTROY IT!
[flv:https://andysworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Bare-Metal-Recovery-Part2-SBS2011.flv 480 360]
Wait for the Restore and Server to Restart.
New HD Video Bare Metal Recovery of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011: Part 1 How to Backup Microsoft Small Business Server 2011
Sunday, October 30th, 2011Whilst on the subject of Backup and Restore, I also get asked “How Do I perform a Bare Metal Restore of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011?”
All the software is provided by Microsoft to perform a Bare Metal restore of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011. The application we use is called Windows Server Backup, available from the Start bar. So there is no excuse to try and practice, the software is included for free, and following these videos, you will also be able to perform a Bare Metal Recovery of your Microsoft Small Business Server 2011, should the need arise from a recent backup.
Firstly, we need to complete and run a Full Backup. You could backup to a another local disk, external USB hard disk, but I prefer to backup to a network location, which happens to be a Western Digital Worldbook NAS. I’ve already created a share called backup, so the full UNC path to the backup location is \\nas\backup
[flv:https://andysworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Bare-Metal-Recovery-Part1-SBS2011.flv 480 360]
See Part 2 Bare Metal Restore – New HD Video Bare Metal Recovery of Microsoft Small Business Server 2011: Part 2 How to Restore Microsoft Small Business Server 2011
New HD Video: Restore a Virtual Machine using the FREE VMware vCenter Converter to VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0
Saturday, October 29th, 2011I get asked many times, “How do I Restore my Virtual Machines to my VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0 servers?”
Hopefully this will answer your question!
If you’ve followed the last blog, and video New HD Video: Backup VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0 for FREE using VMware vCenter Converter, I’ll show you how to restore it quickly in this 3 minute video
Okay, so you have a “virtual machine backup” or a virtual machine that you would like to Convert, Import or (“Restore”) to VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0.
I have a backup on a NAS called NAS (Western Digital Worldbook), in the share backup, folder TestXPforEE, the UNC path is \\nas\backup\TestXPforEE.
The destination ESXi server is called esx3iserver, and I’m going to restore to a datastore called nfs.
[flv:https://andysworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/VMware-vCenter-Converter-Restore.flv 480 360]
New HD Video: Backup VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0 for FREE using VMware vCenter Converter
Saturday, October 29th, 2011I get asked many times, “How do I Backup my Virtual Machines on my VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0 servers?”
Hopefully, this will answer that question.
Firstly, download VMware vCenter Converter v5.0 for free from here. Yes it’s FREE.
We usually use VMware vCenter Converter for Physical to Virtual (P2V) or Virtual to Virtual (V2V) conversions, but it can also be used to Convert or Export (“Backup”) a virtual machine to disk. We can then use VMware vCenter Converter to Convert or Import (“Restore”) this virtual machine to another VMware system.
Best answered with a quick 5 minute video clip, to set the scene:-
Source Server – esx3iserver
Destination Server –nas (Western Digital World Book NAS), with a share called backup (\\nas\backup)
Virtual Machine to Backup – TestXPforEE
I’ve also connected to the NAS share from the converting Server (could be a workstation OS), to show the files being copied and exported to the share. (\\nas\backup). When selecting the destination source, virtual machine type, it does not matter what we select if imporing, restoring to VMware vSphere, as converter will be able to convert it back, if you want to use the virtual machine for VMware Workstation, VMware Player or Server, select the correct VMware virtual machine version.
[flv:https://andysworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/VMware-vCenter-Converter-Backup1.flv 480 360]
In this way virtual machines which are Powered-On or Powered-Off can be Converted, Exported or Backed Up!
Andysworld! Moto: A BACKUP IS NOT A BACKUP, IF IT’S NOT STORED IN THREE PLACES!
How to restore in this blog – New HD Video: Restore a Virtual Machine using the FREE VMware vCenter Converter to VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0
Replacement Samsung CLP-620ND Printer
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011I almost “bust a gut” today moving my printers from the office to the local recycling centre, because I’ve just purchase a new replacement Samsung colour laser, CLP-620ND Printer, that also does duplex printing for 95 GBP with the 100 GBP cashback!
The HP LaserJets 1100, 2100N and Lexmark Optra SC 1275 had all failed with terminal faults, it was cheaper to purchase a replacement than repair!
scrap printers at recycling centre
New Samsung CLP-620ND
New HD Video: VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 – Convert monolithic sparse to monolithic flat for use with VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0. ESXi 4.x, 5.0.
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011Sometimes we may come across a Virtual Appliance or Virtual Machine, which has been developed and tested for VMware Server 2.0.2, VMware Workstation or VMware Player that we would like to use on VMware vSphere 4.x or 5.0. In this example I’m using Open Computers and Software Inventory Next Generation. The VMs supplied have been developed and tested with VMware Server and VMware Player.
Only issue is, when we try to turn on the Virtual Appliance, we get the error message “Failed to open disk scsi0:0: Unsupported or invalid disk type 7. Ensure that the disk has been imported.” – in VMware vSphere 4.x or 5.0.
It’s possible that the virtual appliance virtual disk is probably monolithicSparse, and ESXi only works with pre-allocated disk (monolithicFlat).
No issue just use VMware Converter Standalone to convert the appliance or virtual machine.
This is my first outing with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0, oddly the earlier version 4.3, will not import into ESXi 5.0, it produces a General Fault. The vConverter for vCenter works okay with ESXi 5.0, but not the standalone version.
Rather than a lot of words, here’s a quick video demonstration of the Conversion. So VMware Converter has more uses than just P2V tool!
[flv:https://andysworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/vmdk.flv 480 360]
An exciting Saturday…. No Electricity or internet for 11 hours and worst of all No Strictly Come Dancing!
Sunday, October 9th, 2011I’ll set the scene, at the beginning of September (September 5th 2011)
- one of the power supplies on a computers workstation, went bang and failed – reported here on Andysworld!,
- another power supply on another workstation, failed – OCZ power supply.
- Humax Fox-SAT STB power supply failed – reported here on Andysworld!.
- An electronic X10 switch failed which operates the backyard lamp.
Diagnosing the fault with the backyard lamp, I noticed and reported to Boot Ferrule Man, (a qualified Electrician) and my neighbour, the mains voltage coming into the house was 256v AC! (which I suspect had blown and damaged the electronic X10 switch). Boot Ferrule Man stated that was far too high, and out of tolerence, but when I checked on the internet, I was confused by the reported tolerences of AC voltage supply in the UK. At this time, I had not associated this “possible fault” with the other items 1-3 above.
Saturday 8th October 2011, a neighbour in the shire, knocked on the door at 11.00am, asking if we had, had any damage the previous night (7th October 2011) at 9.00, because a few properties in the shire, had items which had stopped working, lightbulbs, Freeview STB, Washing Machines, Central heating pumps, Sky Boxes, television mast head amplifiers etc
We had not noticed any, issues that evening. they reported the fault to YEDL, later Saturday afternoon (3.15pm), a YEDL Engineer visited our house, and disconnected us, because they found the electrical impedance to the property was at 1.3 ohms, the maximum impedance allowable is 0.35 ohms, and stated that they had tested that day 280V AC, at a few properties, the fault lay in the common neutral to all the houses, and their was a fault outside of the property, possibly due to water ingress into the underground cabling. I asked the YEDL engineers, what time did they think service would resume, and they stated, the Digging Team was scheduled to arrive at 6.15pm, and they could not do any work, until thy arrived, so they tidied their YEDL VANs! They gave me a time of 10.00pm! I noticed that the YEDL, are going through a re-branding to CE Electric UK. These were some of the labels on the VANs, although they still had YEDL uniforms!
So I decided to power-up the petrol generator for the fish house.
Coincidence you may think, because in April 2010, they were fixing a joint underground, see here.
The YEDL engineers arrived on site, to fix the fault, but had to wait for the “digging team” before they could start work, the digging team eventually arrived at approx 7.30pm, because I just come back from the Chinese with our dinner, to eat in the dark with our headtorches, and my NEW ZEBRALIGHT!, which of course I purchased from my friendly Boot Ferrule Man. ZEBRALIGHT! Review coming soon!
Our electricity was not re-connected and tested until approx 2.30am, so with hindsight, it was a good job, I connected the petrol generator for the fish house, and this is the longest runtime, I’ve had it running 11 hours@3000Watts.
New Impedance tested to house is 0.29 ohms.
A few photos of the event!
Bye Bye Steve Jobs – The IT World will miss you!
Thursday, October 6th, 2011I’ve just picked up my iPad, and learnt Steve Jobs has died peacefully today, surrounded by his family.
Deeply saddened by his passing, but his legacy with live on, in the devices we now use everyday.
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