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Restore Bare Metal Backup Data from Server

Overview

The image of a disk or a drive that backs up can be restored either as a file or during the restore the image can be applied directly into a disk. When the disk or drive that is to be restored is accessible from the machine running the image restore, the image can be directly applied into the disk. The steps for this are in the later half of this document.

However, often the disk may not be accessible or may be in a remote location. In such cases, the image can be restored as a file first, shipped to the client location and then applied into the disk through 's Recovery CD. For more details on this, refer this document.

StoreGird can also convert the restored disk image to a virtual image in the following formats:

  1. VMDK - VMWare's virtual machine image format. Image converted into VMDK format can be launched as a virtual machine on a VMWare Server.

  2. VHD - Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine format. Image converted into VHD format can be launched as a virtual machine in a Hyper-V environment.

How to get here in the Web Console?
 In the top menu, select: "Server Admin->Reseller Management->List of Resellers". From the list of resellers displayed in the table, click on the Reseller Name. This lists the customers under this Reseller. Now click on the Customer Name. This lists the clients under this Customer.  Now,  click on a client name.  This will open a page which lists the backup schedules backing up to this server (from the selected client).  Now click on the "Restore" action icon against the Advanced disk image backup.  If you had password protected the backup schedule, will ask the password for that backup schedule.

Supported OSes

  • Windows XP

  • Windows Server 2003

  • Windows SBS 2003, 2008 & 2011

  • Windows Vista

  • Windows 7

  • Windows Server 2008 & R2

    • Both 32 and 64 bit OSes are supported.

Restore Bare Metal Backup Data

Step 0: Backup Details

  • Backup Name - The backup name is a non-editable field.

    • Step 1: Select version to restore

    Here you can choose to restore either the entire disk(s) or restore specific drive(s).

    Selecting version for restore: Based on your backup schedule, you can select to restore any version of the backup image of a particular schedule. You can choose the version by scolling down the select version option list in which the latest version of backup image with the time stamp will be on the top and the oldest backup image at the bottom of the list. select the desired version and click Load button to load the particular image for restore to continue. By default, the latest version of the backup image is loaded.




    Selecting entire disk for restore: If you select to restore the entire disk, then in step 3 you can either restore the disk image to the hard disk or convert the disk image into a VMDK / VHD format.




    Selecting drive(s) for restore: Here you have the option to restore drive(s) alone to another drive(s).

    Step 2: Confirm Restore Settings

    • Restore Location - Specify the location for restore. The restored files will be saved in this location but with their full original path - that way you know exactly where these files were in the first place!. Make sure the directory you provide for restore has enough disk space and has valid read and write permissions. It is recommended to provide an empty directory or a new directory path for the local restore location.




    Step 3: Confirm Bare Metal Restore Settings

    Download Disk Image files

    This option " Download the image file from backup server." is used to restore the backup as an image (.vhd) file. This option is useful when the disk that needs to be restored is in a remote location or is not accessible from the machine where is running. After restoring the files, you can take it to the client local and using the Recovery CD, you can restore the disk image file (present in external device) into the new hard disk. For more details on how to restore a disk using 's Recovery CD, please refer to this help document. If Compression and encryption is not enabled for the backup schedule, this downloaded Vhd file can be directly connected to any supporting virtualization environment like Microsoft Hyper-v and can be booted as ready to use VM

    VMDK or VHD Conversion

    Option 'Convert the restored disk image into VMDK/VHD format' is used to convert the disk image file into virtual files either VMDK - VMWare's virtual machine image format or VHD-Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine format. The converted virtual image can be used to boot it up as a virtual machine in a VMWare or Hyper-V environment.

    Note: While launching the VMDK/VHD file on a virtual machine environment, you have to inject the drivers through the Recovery CD

    Hard disk or Partition restore

    This steps restores the backed up disk image data to disk/drive. By default, the option 'Perform disk or parition restore...' is selected. This will restore the data to the hard disk/drive.

    Note: In Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windwos 2008 OSes, you have to set the BCD configuration through the Recovery CD if any problem occurred while booting the OS from the recovered hard disk data.

    Step 4: Compress Restore Files

    It is an optional step to compress the restored data if the option "Download the image file from backup server." is chosen in step 3.

    Enable Restored files for download - If enabled, the data is stored in a zip file format.

    Encrypt Zip File - If required, the restored zip files can be encrypted while archiving the data and protected with a password.

  • Restore and Cancel Button - Once all the options are set, click on the Restore button to restore the backup. The status of the restore operation will be displayed in a pop-up browser window.

    • Troubleshooting Tips


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