Server admin passed away... Help!

jay1969

Hi Guys,

 

I hope this is the right section to post this. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

 

About a year ago, our small business expanded and we asked a friend of ours to set up our server. That person passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago and we can no longer ask for his guidance/technical support to manage the server.

 

To keep costs to a minimum, our friend decided to use a Linux configuration and virtualize the server in order to add another virtual server who would be isolated from the first one so we can install a consultation software on the second server. ProxMox is being used as a virtualization engine.

 

I have all the passcodes to enter the ProxMox interface and was using the built-in backup feature to create snapshots of the server state. Last week, I did try to run a new back-up and the server crashed. I read that the crash could be linked to an overnumber of backups. I did delete a few of them, started the backup function and it crashed again.

 

If my memory serves me well, there are 2 data drives in RAID (is that it, RAID?) and 2 OS drives also in RAID, formatted Linux (that is all I know).

 

I can access the WIN2012 dashboard and console through RDC but cannot see, as you well know, the Linux Drives of copy their content.

 

I am not even able to get a hardware system report. I tried booting on a True Image 2013 CD I have and use to manage the Windows computers on the network. I am at a loss here and do not understand shoot about Linux File system nor ProxMox. I chose UEFI in the BIOS settings without any luck.

 

First, I would like to get the VM snapshots (.vma/.vma.lzo)  out of the server and get them on an offsite, external HDD. I do not even know how to do that, I have read about CloneZilla, but it seems to work with [Linux] line commands. Again, at a complete loss here. It is my understanding that I will need to format the XHDD to a Linux File format. Which?

 

Second, I would like to understand why the server is crashing when doing a backup.

 

Third, I would like to get a hardware system report since we are considering buying a new piece of equipment and migrate on to a VMWare/Windows file system architecture. Support for Linux on the web seems to be very limited and, I suppose it is because I do not know a single thing about Linux, it seems very complex to me.

 

Where should I start? Any advices or tips? Is there a crash course tutorial that would help me understand how this whole gig works? Please respond to this thread. I desperately need help.

 

Thanks a million,

 

Jay