Make a system state backup before you start your migration project By Mariette Knap system state backup, wbadmin Migrating Active Directory from one server to a new server will change the structure of your AD and if for some reason you need to roll back you must have a System State backup. The normal backup routine from any SBS or any Windows Server with the Essentials Experience role installed and the backup configured with the Dashboard does not include a System State Backup you can use to restore System State only. If you try to restore System State from a backup made by the Dashboard routine you will soon find the Active Directory is no longer functional and all will fail. Those backups are only for bare metal restores and that means ‘everything’ that was one your drives. That is not what you want so we make a separate System State backup. 1. How to make a System State Backup on your SBS 2011 server. If you are migrating to Windows Server 2016 and you use How to migrate from SBS 2011 to Windows Server 2016 (Essentials) or you are migrate to Windows Server 2012 R2 and you use Migrate from SBS 2011 Standard to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials then this procedure is part of your migration and must be completed before you start the migration. A System State Backup on SBS 2011 is made with wbadmin.exe command line utility. If you want to know more about this utility have a look at this Technet document Wbadmin On the SBS 2011 open an elevated command prompt. Choose ‘Run as administrator’. Click Yes Type wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:e: where e: in my case is the portable USB drive I always have with me to make System State Backups. You cannot backup to a shared folder or a mapped drive, it must be a USB drive with at least 500GB free space. It is your insurance if anything goes wrong! If you get a warning that there is some error in the command and you copied it from this site please try to type the command. Type [Y] to continue wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:e: This can take awhile. Be patient and let it complete. Finally it is done. After this is done you can have a look in the folder that contains the backup. You need to grant yourself access and then you will see it created a folder with the server name. 2. How to make a System State Backup on your SBS 2008 server. If you are migrating to Windows Server 2016 and you use How to migrate from SBS 2008 to Windows Server 2016 (Essentials) or you are migrate to Windows Server 2012 R2 and you use How to migrate from SBS 2008 Standard to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials then this procedure is part of your migration and must be completed before you start the migration. A System State Backup on SBS 2008 is made with wbadmin.exe command line utility. If you want to know more about this utility have a look at this Technet document Wbadmin On the SBS 2008 open an elevated command prompt. Choose ‘Run as administrator’. Click Yes Type wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:e: where e: in my case is the portable USB drive I always have with me to make System State Backups. You cannot backup to a shared folder or a mapped drive, it must be a USB drive with at least 500GB free space. It is your insurance if anything goes wrong! If you get a warning that there is some error in the command and you copied it from this site please try to type the command. Type [Y] to continue wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:e: This can take awhile. Be patient and let it complete. Finally it is done. After this is done you can have a look in the folder that contains the backup. You need to grant yourself access and then you will see it created a folder with the server name. 3. How to make a System State Backup on your SBS 2003 server. If you are migrating to Windows Server 2016 and you use How to migrate from SBS 2003 R2 Premium to Windows Server 2016 (Essentials) or you are migrate to Windows Server 2012 R2 and you use How to migrate from SBS 2003 R2 Premium to Windows Server 2012 R2 (Essentials) then this procedure is part of your migration and must be completed before you start the migration. A System State backup on SBS 2003 is made with NTBackup. If you want to more about this tool read Backing Up and Restoring Data for Windows Server 2003 From the Start Menu choose Backup from System Tools Click Advanced Mode Check System State Make sure you save the backup on another drive like a portable USB drive and name it something that makes sense to you like ‘SystemState’. Click Start Backup Backup is working It is ready, click close