Q:

Replace Server 2003 DFS Root Drive

I am looking to replace a drive on a server for more capacity.  A DFS root resides on this drive.   The new drive will have the same drive letter.   DFS is not configured for replication, just for centralizing share names. 
What's the best procedure to migrate the DFS config?   There are not too many shares on it, so I'm thinking its easiest to just recreate from scratch.   I have the luxury of 48 hours down time! 

A:

AFAIK if you're just doing DFS w/o replication you should be able to backup the existing disk w/ NTBACKUP (or something else that can handle NTFS reparse points), then restore that backup to the new disk.  Where you run into issues w/ changing out a disk relates to the file replication service and sigantures on the disk (and that's w/ NTFRS-- I don't know about DFS-R). 
Just to be safe, I'd follow the procedure to do an export of the DFS configuration using DFSUTIL from the Windows Support tools (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc776211(WS.10).aspx), and then you'll have what you need to re-import if worse comes to worse.  If it works w/o the import then all the better.  >smile<

