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Physical to Virtual (P2V) image-based restores of Windows clients

With bare metal backups, you can use your Unitrends Backup or Unitrends Recovery Series appliance to create a VMware or Hyper-V virtual machine instance of a physical server. You will need a bare metal .iso file created with the Unitrends Bare Metal Media tool, and a bare metal backup of the server you want to restore. Note that if you’re performing the P2V operation as a test and the server you’re restoring is currently online, you will need to change the network settings in the Client Settings section of the Bare Metal Media tool to an available IP address. If you are restoring a domain controller to a Hyper-V VM, see Special consideration for Domain Controllers on Hyper-V after completing the restore.

See these procedures for details on P2V restores:

ClosedTo perform a P2V image-based restore
1 If performing the restore as a test, first see Considerations for bare metal test restores.
2 Make sure the IP in the hosts file of the Unitrends system matches what was entered in the Client Settings section of the Bare Metal Media tool. To edit the hosts file, on the Backup system navigate to Settings > Clients, Networks, and Notifications > Networks > Hosts, select your client in the list, type in its new IP, and click Confirm.
3 Create your virtual machine.
• Do not install an OS on the VM.
• Add at least 2 GB of memory, or more if preferred.
• Give the virtual hard drive at least as much space as was available on the physical server. If you give it less space, the restore will fail.
• Make sure you’re using the E1000 NIC for VMware, or the Legacy NIC for
Hyper-V. For Hyper-V, this may require removing the existing network adapter and adding the legacy. For details, see To configure the Hyper-V VM to use the legacy network adapter.
• Add your bare metal .iso to the VM’s disk drive.
4 Boot the VM from the bare metal .iso.
5 Once the bare metal screen comes up, select Bare Metal Restore.
6 A list of your bare metal backups appears at the top of the screen. Select the one you would like to use for your restore and click Start Restore.
7 On this screen, click Add to tell the Unitrends system to restore your bare metal backup to the virtual hard drive you created in step 3. Click OK.
8 The option to view real-time statistics appears in a dialog box. Monitor the status of the restore on the Bare Metal Statistics screen, or from the Unitrends Administrator Interface at Settings > System Monitoring > Jobs.
9 Once the restore is complete, inject the networking driver.
10 Click OK and then Exit to take you back to the Windows Bare Metal Restore screen.
11 Click Rescan Disk to scan for newly created partitions and volumes
12 Click Inject Offline Driver.
13 Select your OS volume under Disk information and click either ESX Guest Storage Driver or HyperV or Xen Guest Storage Driver.
14 Click Cancel to close windows until you’re back to the Windows Bare Metal menu.
15 Click Diagnostic Tools and Reboot to reboot your system.
16 At this point the Windows boot volume (usually C:) has been restored. Create and format additional volumes as necessary.

Important!   If file-level backups of the original Windows client contain files from volumes outside of the Windows boot volume, you must create and format those additional volumes. File-level restore will fail if these additional volumes do not exist.

17 Perform file-level recovery to restore your machine to its latest backup. See Executing a point-in-time restore for details.

Note:  For Exchange servers - If you are unable to mount Exchange databases after performing the restore, the databases may be in a Dirty Shutdown state. See this Microsoft article for details: Exchange Database is in a Dirty Shutdown State.

ClosedDissimilar image-based bare metal restore for Windows 2003 and 2003 R2

The Dissimilar Bare Metal feature provides the ability to restore a backup from one computer to a second computer of a different make, model, or hardware configuration. See the following topics for details on the proper configuration and use of this feature.

Note:  Dissimilar restores are supported for some Windows 2003 distributions. See the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix for details. Dissimilar restores are not supported for Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

ClosedDissimilar image-based restore limitations for WinPE 1.5 environments
• Dual-boot or Multi-boot is not supported.
• The bare metal backup must be created using Unitrends system version 3.0.0 or higher.
• A boot disk must be made with the Unitrends Bare Metal Media tool. See Creating the boot media for image-based recovery.
• You must not remove the boot media from the machine once the system has booted. The CD contains important Windows bare metal system files. This is a restriction of Microsoft Windows PE.
• A bare metal backup cannot be restored to a smaller disk.
• To restore to a Hyper-V virtual machine, you must first configure the VM with the legacy network adapter as described in Image-based restore to a Hyper-V virtual machine.
ClosedTo perform dissimilar image-based restores for WinPE 1.5 clients
1 If performing the restore as a test, first see Considerations for bare metal test restores.
2 If restoring to a Hyper-V VM only, complete the procedure Image-based restore to a Hyper-V virtual machine.
3 Boot the Windows server from the boot CD. Upon completion of the Windows bare metal boot process, the Windows Bare Metal interface displays.
4 Select Bare Metal Restore. This loads the restore GUI which lists all the bare metal backups for this client stored on the backup system. Select one of the backups (normally the most current one).
5 Check the Enable Seek in Restore checkbox to speed up the restore by only sending data to the client, skipping unused sections of the disk.
6 Select the appropriate options for the desired restore operation and click Start Restore.
7 Select the backup and disk to be restored and click Add.
8 Select the Enable Dissimilar Restore checkbox. Then locate the appropriate drivers. Select the known platform that you are restoring to from the list. Then click OK to continue with the verification of the driver files.
9 A message displays to acknowledge the success or failure of the driver file verification.
• If the driver file verification is successful, select OK to continue with the restore and inject the necessary driver files.
• If verification fails, select OK to locate and verify drivers in a different location.
10 Upon successful completion of the restore, the following message displays:
Quit the Bare Metal Restore GUI and reboot the server with the Windows Bare Metal CD removed from the server.
11 Remove the bare metal CD and reboot your server into its operating system by clicking on Diagnostic Tools, then Reboot. Click Yes twice to reboot your system.
12 At this point the Windows boot volume (usually C:) has been restored. Create and format additional volumes as necessary.

Important!   If file-level backups of the original Windows client contain files from volumes outside of the Windows boot volume, you must create and format those additional volumes. File-level restore will fail if these additional volumes do not exist.

13 Perform file-level recovery to restore your machine to its latest backup. See Executing a point-in-time restore for details.

Note:  For Exchange servers - If you are unable to mount Exchange databases after performing the restore, the databases may be in a Dirty Shutdown state. See this Microsoft article for details: Exchange Database is in a Dirty Shutdown State..

ClosedImage-based restore to a Hyper-V virtual machine

To perform a bare metal restore for Windows XP or Windows 2003 guests in Hyper-V, the legacy network adapter is needed to boot the WinPE 1.5 media. Later Windows versions use WinPE 2.0 media and do not require the legacy adapter.

To restore a Windows XP or Windows 2003 Hyper-V guest, configure the VM to use the legacy network adapter, then proceed to Dissimilar image-based bare metal restore for Windows 2003 and 2003 R2. If you are restoring a domain controller, see Special consideration for Domain Controllers on Hyper-V.

ClosedTo configure the Hyper-V VM to use the legacy network adapter
1 Launch Hyper-V Manager, right-click the VM, and select Shut Down.

The VM shuts down and its State changes to Off.

2 Right-click the VM and select Settings.
3 In the Hardware list, select the existing Network Adapter and note the current value in the Network drop-down box.
4 Change the value in the Network drop-down box to Not connected and click Apply.
5 In the Hardware list, select Add Hardware.
6 Choose Legacy Network Adapter in the list and click Add.
7 Change the value in the Network drop-down box to the value you noted above, and click OK.
8 Right-click the VM and select Start to power it on.

The virtual machine is now running and a bare metal recovery can be performed.