Windows Server Backup - 0x80042407, seriously?

Question

I installed server 2008 on a test server with 4x250GB drives in a RAID5 array.
Windows was installed on a 60GB partition, the rest of the array was left as free space.
After installing updates and drivers, I decided that I wanted a RAID10 array. 
This would give me a chance to test the restore functionality of Windows Server Backup.
I did a full backup with Windows Server Backup to a network location.
After reconfiguring the RAID array I started the recovery process.
Here is the issue.  right when the restore should start, I get an error....
The Windows Complete PC Restore operation failed.
Error details: The disk that is set as active in BIOS is too small to recover the original system disk.  Replace the disk with a larger one and retry the restore operation. (0x80042407)
I've tried creating partitions of all sizes and leaving the disk blank, same error.
I even set the disk as the first boot device in BIOS.
I've read elsewhere that the disk must be the same size or larger.  That just seems like a bad April fools joke to me.
Can anyone give me some insight on this issue?

Answer 1

Hello Jason,
Thank you for your reply.
For your further concern, this same or bigger disk size requirement is by design for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. As a suggestion, we recommend you use a bigger disk for Bare Metal Restore.
Currently we cannot edit the backup size. However, to fulfill your demand, there is a possible given workaround to restore the backup to smaller disk size.
Workaround: To recover the System manually using Volume recovery
By using this workaround, at minimum the OS critical partitions should be of the same size for the volume recovery.
To recovery the System manually from Windows Recovery Environment (when BMR – Complete PC Restore is not working), user has to recover all the partitions individually and then set the BCD boot entries.
Please follow the below mentioned steps:
1)    Get the backup version from the backup target.
2)    From version, get the size of partitions at the time of backup.
3)    Recreate the partitions manually with same or more size.
4)    Perform volume recovery of Individual volumes.
5)    Set the Active bit for System volume.
6)    Fix the Boot entries.
Please replace anything marked under <> with actual values. The yellow marked entries are for sample only. We have to pick the actual values from his system. Also assuming the Boot disk is disk 0 in this case.
Open Command prompt:
1)    Do wbadmin get versions –backuptarget:<X:>.
a.    Select the version id from. E.g. Version identifier: 02/11/2009-09:14
Note: If the backup target is network share, then run “start /w wpeinit” to enable networking.
2)    Do wbadmin get items –version:<versioned> -backuptarget:<X:>
a.    This will give the list of volumes that were backed up and their sizes.
3)    Using Diskpart, recreate your volumes of the same or more size. Assume that the Boot disk is Disk 0 and is empty. Disk 0 is the boot disk and is the first disk in BIOS boot order.
If the required partitions are already present then skip the steps below.
a.    Diskpart.exe
b.    List disk
c.    Select disk 0.
d.    Create par primary  size=<size>        
e.    Format fs=ntfs quick label=”OS”               (Format the OS partition with NTFS)
f.     Assign letter=D                 (assign drive letter D: to OS volume)
g.    Do the same for all the volumes you want to recover.
h.    Detail disk
i.      It lists the newly created partitions.
4)    To recover the volumes one by one,
a.    Do wbadmin get items –version:<versionid> -backuptarget:<X:> .
b.    Select the volume id or drive letter for OS volume that was backed up.
E.g. C: corresponds to the OS volume at backup time.
c.    Wbadmin start recovery –version:<versionid> -backuptarget:<x:> -itemType:Volume –items:C:  -recoverytarget:D:
d.    Do the same for all the other volumes. Make sure that minimum space requirement is met.
e.    Set the active bit of System volume from Diskpart.
f.     Diskpart.exe ->
                                          i.    Select volume D:
                                         ii.    active
5)    Reboot the OS and boot back into WinRE as OS is not yet bootable.
6)    Select Startup-Repair option to fix the BCD boot entries.
7)    Reboot and OS should be in a bootable state.
8)    If OS is still not bootable, use bcdedit.exe/bootrec.exe in WinRE to fix the BCD boot options.
I understand that it will be reasonable to edit the backup so that the bare metal restore process can accept the smaller disk size, our product team are aware of this desired functionality and will definitely keep this in mind as future product development continues.
Thanks for your understandings.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.