I have tried to install SP1 a few times on test system and it has always failed and taken the farm down.I now need to do it on our live system.This farm consists of 2 servers, FE web, and BE SQL and is MOSS 2007.I was thinking that I could Quiesce the farm, then either using STSADM or the web admin 'Backup' feature (which is better?), backup the entire MOSS system and then try to apply the SP.Can you confirm this is Ok, or suggest another way so that I can roll back in the event of the SP1 install failing?MCTS

be sure to back up also 12 hive, inetpub, and SQL db

Lastly - make a not of any Alernate Access Mappings that you have created. So in summary:Per Ahmed:- SharePoint Backup- SQL BackupPer Ivan:- be sure to back up also 12 hive, inetpub, and SQL dbPer Jeff- Document all AAM'sWith all of this in hand you should be all set.I hope this helps and answers your question-Jeff DeVerter, MCSERackspaceblog:http://www.social-point.comtwitter: http://www.twitter.com/jdeverter

According to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287880.aspx , both STSADM and central administration have the limitation that although they can backup configuration database and Central Administration content database, restore for those two database backup taken from a running farm is not supported. You may consider Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. According to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287880.aspx#recovery ,you can restore a backup of the configuration database and Central Administration content database taken from a fully stopped farm. However, Quiesce does not mean “stop a farm”, please take a look at this thread for Quiesce: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepointadmin/thread/69ca2d8e-81e7-46e5-bde4-1668c89aa3d5 . http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512725.aspx#Section2 defines stopping a farm as follows: Move all databases to a database server that has the same name Stop the farm by following these steps: On the server that is running the Central Administration Web site, in the Services snap-in, stop the following services: Microsoft Single Sign-On service Office Document Conversions Launcher service Office Document Conversions Load Balancer service Office SharePoint Server Search service Windows SharePoint Services Administration service Windows SharePoint Services Search service Windows SharePoint Services Timer service Windows SharePoint Services Tracing service Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer service On the server that is running the Central Administration Web site, at the command prompt, type iisreset /stop. You can see in order that to restore the configuration database and Central Administration content database, you have to stop the farm, and after farm stopped, STSADM and Central Administration won’t work. You have to then rely on the SQL Server and Windows command. You can use STSADM and Central Administration after all databases and files is restored and the services are started in Windows Server Services snap-in.