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Clone a hard drive from a remote machine

xtoffe -  
duncarpc Posted messages 150 Status Member -
Hello,
following an incident (disk crash) that caused a significant loss of production time, I would like, for security reasons, to clone the hard drive of several important PCs in my company.

I just joined the company, and my predecessor as well as the management did not seem too concerned about having quick restart solutions in case of issues.... This incident made them realize the necessity of a DRP ....

The machines in question manage automata or weighing bridges, and the configuration of these devices is complicated. For some, we even have to call back the company that installed them since we can't configure them ourselves.

Following this incident, I would like to take precautions and clone the disks of the others, so that in case of a crash, we would only have to replace the defective disk or PC with its twin.
My problem is: since these are production machines, I cannot afford to stop them to insert the blank disk and launch the cloning program (Acronis or Aomei). Moreover, 2 of them are located in a very hard-to-access area of the factory...

Is there a solution to perform "remote" cloning via the network? I have access to these PCs via Netop, RDP, or TeamViewer without any issues.

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

6 answers

  1.
    duncarpc Posted messages 150 Status Member 11
     
    Hello,
    your problem requires a case study, anything is possible, get in touch with an expert who will be able to advise you. For troubleshooting, you have Clonezilla, of course with PowerShell and Pla you can do everything.

    But in a production environment, you won't find what you're looking for here, because we need more time and discussion, etc... so an expert will be able to help you, that's their job.
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  2. JeuneL Posted messages 1873 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   155
     
    Hello,

    Remote cloning involves bandwidth, storage space, certainly software installation on each machine, settings, etc....

    If these are machines that cannot be shut down, perhaps consider installing a RAID system to have a permanent copy on a second disk that would take over in case of damage to the first.

    But we should be able to install software, create a procedure at time and day X on a NAS or a remote server.
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  3. kaumune Posted messages 22605 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   5 157
     
    Hi

    Remote cloning (or rather the system image) is not an issue with remote access via Teamviewer

    I also think that RAID would be more suitable for the problem.
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  4. xtoffe
     
    Thank you for your responses

    The problem with RAID is that you would need to stop the machines to install a controller and additional disks. My idea was to create an ISO image of the disk over the network, place it on a NAS, and then recreate a copy of the disk from that image.

    Another advantage is that if it's not the hard drive that's the problem, but the PC itself, I can place the copy disk in an identical PC and change the entire machine quickly without having to fiddle too much in a difficult environment ;-)
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  6. JeuneL Posted messages 1873 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   155
     
    This will still require interventions on the machines to install the software.

    The choice to be made is: Will we wait for a breakdown to take action and lose a lot of time and money to get the machine(s) back up and running, or will we lose a little time and production to secure the machines and avoid the breakdown?
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    1. duncarpc Posted messages 150 Status Member 11
       
      He can do everything, folder redirection, roaming profile, VDI, restore point... he needs to contact a consultant for the best approach to a DRP plan. Here we are very limited, we don't have all the elements.
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    2. xtoffe
       
      It will still require interventions on the machines to install the software.


      Not necessarily, we can very well install software remotely without completely stopping the machine.
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  7. JeuneL Posted messages 1873 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   155
     
    provided that it is intended for... Otherwise, it would mean that we can remotely access any PC, fortunately not!
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    1. xtoffe
       
      We (the info service) can access the machines remotely via RDP or Netop or even TeamViewer

      Of course, you need to have admin rights to connect to them...
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    2. duncarpc Posted messages 150 Status Member 11
       
      At a distance, you can access any PC and run scripts; for example, get closer to Windows Admin Center.
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