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Operating systems
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Recovery to identical hardware and virtual machines is supported for the client operating systems listed below. (Additional version limitations apply. See the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix for details.) Recovery to dissimilar hardware is NOT supported for XP and is supported for the others in this list.
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Windows XP, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2 and later) |
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Windows Vista, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2) |
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Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit |
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Windows 8, 32-bit and 64-bit |
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Windows 8.1, 32-bit and 64-bit |
Recovery to identical hardware and virtual machines is supported for the server operating systems listed below. (Additional version limitations apply. See the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix for details.) Recovery to dissimilar hardware is NOT supported for 2003/2003 R2 and is supported for the others in this list.
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Windows 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2) |
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Windows 2003 R2, 32-bit and 64-bit |
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Windows Small Business Server 2003 and later, 32-bit and 64-bit |
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Windows 2008, 32-bit and 64-bit |
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Windows 2008 R2, 64-bit |
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Windows 2012 R2, 64-bit |
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An eligible file-level backup
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The backup used for recovery must meet these requirements:
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It is a full, differential, or incremental file-level backup that contains disk metadata (known as the asset's system state). Disk metadata is captured in file-level backups unless you have opted to exclude critical volumes or to exclude the system state. |
To check whether the system state is included in a backup, run the Backup History report and select the backup in the list. In the Backup Status: Report Entry dialog, check the Output area for System State Excluded or Included. If system state was excluded, you need to modify the backup job to include all critical volumes to create a backup that can be used for unified BMR. For details, see To create a file-level backup job.
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Unified BMR ISO images
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For the recovery, you must use the 32-bit or 64-bit unified BMR ISO image provided on the your Unitrends appliance. The ISOs contain WinPE (a minimal version of Windows used for installations) and the Unitrends Unified Bare Metal Recovery wizard that guides you through the recovery. To prepare for DR, it is recommended that you do the following:
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Create bootable CDs of these ISOs and store them in a safe place (so that you can quickly recover to a physical machine target). |
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Save the ISOs to your hypervisor (so you can quickly recover to a virtual machine target). |
For details, see Step 1: Access the unified bare metal recovery ISO image.
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Firmware interface type
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Supported for BIOS- and UEFI-based assets. The firmware interface type (BIOS or UEFI) of the recovery target machine must match that of the failed asset.
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Disk configuration
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GPT disks are supported. |
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Dynamic disks are not supported. |
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Software RAID volumes
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Software RAID configurations are not supported.
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Network adapter
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Wireless network adapters cannot be used for the recovery.
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Drivers
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Drivers needed for unified BMR are determined by the operating system of the asset you are recovering and the operating system and hardware of the target recovery machine. You might need to add drivers during different stages of the recovery.
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Loading WinPE drivers for unified bare metal recovery — The Unified BMR wizard uses WinPE 10.0 for the recovery. WinPE 10.0 is based on Windows 11 or Server 2022. If WinPE 10.0 cannot detect a network adapter or storage disks, you must load Windows 11 or Server 2022 drivers into WinPE during recovery. |
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Injecting drivers into the recovered operating system — After the critical volumes have been recovered, you must inject drivers into the recovered operating system if you are recovering to dissimilar hardware or to a virtual machine. |
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If recovering to a physical machine, required drivers vary by hardware and operating system. It is recommended that you verify whether the operating system of the asset you are recovering requires additional drivers to run on the hardware of the recovery target machine before you begin the recovery. |
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If recovering to a virtual machine, you must inject ESX, Hyper-V, or XenServer guest storage drivers, depending upon your virtual environment. These drivers are included in the unified BMR ISO image. |
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Processor features on the recovery target
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WinPE requires that these processor features are enabled on the recovery target machine: NX, PAE, and SSE2. You might need to enable these features on the recovery target machine before booting from the ISO image. For instructions, see Error 0x0000005D (Unsupported Processor) when booting Release 7.4 Integrated Bare Metal restore media. Machines that do not have these processor features cannot be used for the recovery.
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Disk space on recovery target
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Make sure the target machine has enough disk space for the recovery. To recover from a file-level backup, adhere to these requirements:
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The recovery target can have smaller disks than the failed asset, but the recovery fails if the disks do not have enough space for the data on the critical volumes. |
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After an asset has failed, there is no way to determine the size of its critical volumes. You can determine the size of an asset’s full backup by viewing the backup details in the Backup History report. However, the size of the critical volumes will be smaller than the full backup if it also contains non-critical volumes. If you are unsure about the size of the critical volumes, it is recommended that you recover to destination disks that are the same size as the original disks or larger. |
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If you are recovering to new disks, any existing data on the destination disks is overwritten or deleted during the recovery, even if the disks have more than enough space. Before performing a recovery, make sure you have additional copies of any data on the destination disks. |
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If you are recovering to the original disk, only the recovered volumes are overwritten. Other volumes on the original disk are not impacted by the recovery. |
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Supported recovery scenarios
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Use the procedures in Performing unified bare metal recovery for the following recovery scenarios:
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Recover to the same physical hardware as the failed asset. |
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Recover a failed physical asset to dissimilar hardware. Supported for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and higher. |
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Recover a failed physical asset to dissimilar hardware with fewer disks. Supported for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and higher. |
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Recover a failed physical asset to hardware with smaller or larger disks. |
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Recover a failed asset BIOS/MBR configuration to a dissimilar BIOS/MBR configuration. Supported for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and higher. |
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Recover a failed asset UEFI/GPT configuration to a dissimilar UEFI/GPT configuration. Supported for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and higher. |
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Recover multi-boot configured BIOS servers. |
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Recover a failed VM from a file-level backup to a VM or to a physical asset: |
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If you have opted to protect a VM by installing the Windows agent and running file-level backups, you can recover the failed VM by using unified BMR. |
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Recovering a VM to a physical asset is supported for Windows 7/ Server 2008 R2 and higher. |
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Recovery to a VM is supported for these virtual hosts: |
The virtual host must support the operating system (OS) of the Windows asset you are recovering. (See the VMware, Microsoft, or Citrix documentation for details. For Hyper-V, see this Microsoft article: Should I create a generation 1 or 2 virtual machine in Hyper-V?) For example, you cannot recover Windows 2016 to ESXi 5.1 or Hyper-V 2008 R2.
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Prerequisites for Windows unified bare metal recovery