Win 2012 Virtual DC recover from backup

[Benjiboy87]

Hey

 

I am just carrying out some test restores as part of my DR documentation. One thing I have found is, I am unable to get my 2012 DC (VM) into DSRM in order to put AD into restore mode. I think I have stumbled across a major weakness with 2012 and Google has come up dry this time. I am hoping somebody here can maybe help?

 

Here the details:

 

Server 2012 (not R2) domain controller sitting on Citrix Xenserver.

Using Alike DR to backup.

Have restored full VM backup to an isolated test Xenserver.

If I let it boot normally, AD is broke. The sysvol and netlogon shares are missing and I believe this is to do with it being unable to reach the second DC or it could be to do with the time lapsed between when the backup was take and now.

 

So... I want to perform an AD restore through DSRM mode. However...

Pressing F8 during the boot process achieves nothing. Microsoft have even said themselves that it is practically impossible to interrupt the boot process of 2012 these days thanks to fast-boot.

 

I thought using the 2012 install media might allow me into either DSRM or at least a way of changing the boot process so it loads into DSRM on reboot. But no joy there!

 

How on earth am I supposed to recover a virtual 2012 DC without it booting?

 

Cheers!

[snagrat]

Or can turn it on, and then off during boot a couple of times and it will go into recovery and from there you should be able to select DSRM as a boot option.

[Benjiboy87]

Hey

 

Thanks for your reply mate! that actually worked. Although I am not sure if this is a long-term viable option? forcefully powering down whilst the system is reading/writing OS data into RAM/Disk is never a good thing.

[snagrat]

I read it somewhere for Windows 10 and it was a Microsoft article so they must recommend it

[ADMaster]

Does shift restart work on 2012 or is that just new to W10? I've not got a 2012 server to test on.

[Benjiboy87]

Hey pal!

 

Cheers for replying. I can't use that because I can't allow the VM to boot in normal mode. It's basically restore from backup > boot up in DSRM mode or nothing.

 

One boot in normal and AD is fudged.

[computer_expert]

Here's how I did it using 2012R2:

 

1. Boot off the install media
   
2. select the language you need from the lists, click next
   
3. click repair your computer
   
4. troubleshoot > command prompt
   
5. type the following (and hit enter): bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu Yes
   
6. type the following (and hit enter): bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 15
   
7. reboot and wait for the OS selection menu. highlight the OS you want to boot into and press F8 to display the menu
   

 

The first bcdedit command enables the menu, the second sets the timeout to 15 seconds

 

After doing this process you may want to reduce the timeout to 5s (repeat the steps above but change the 2nd bcdedit cmd to timeout 5 instead)

Edited December 30, 2016 by computer_expert