Bare Metal Recovery for Windows

Overview

Bare Metal Recovery is a disk-based disaster recovery feature that enables administrators to restore an entire Windows system environment for an individual computer. A full recovery using Bare Metal Recovery includes the Windows operating system, point-in-time backed-up data, and Exchange, SQL Server, and Oracle applications, when relevant.

The specific procedure for using Bare Metal Recovery to restore a machine with a Windows operating system is discussed in this topic and in the Bare Metal Recovery section. The procedure involves booting a bare machine, accessing the storage system that contains Bare Metal Recovery backups, and selecting a specific backup instance to restore.

For some Windows x64 operating systems, the USB Creator utility is available to insert custom driver software into the ISO image. The USB Creator utility can also be used to create a bootable USB drive to run the Bare Metal Recovery software.

Tip. It is good practice to collect logs after a recovery or after a failure, error, or problem in the Bare Metal Recovery process for diagnostic purposes. See Log Collection for Windows below.

See also. For the latest system requirements and compatibility details regarding supported hardware, file systems, applications, operating systems, and service packs, go to the DPX 4.10 Compatibility Matrix.

Detailed Considerations

Requirements for Recovering a Windows Machine

Bare Metal Recovery for Windows requires:

A Windows Bare Metal Recovery disc, ISO image file, or USB image. See BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation.
A bare machine.

Note. Bare Metal Recovery can recover data to dissimilar Windows machines. Because of the large variety and combinations of hardware on servers, i.e. different vendors, controllers, and processors, it is important to perform careful advanced testing to assess Bare Metal Recovery to dissimilar Windows machines in a given environment. Additional steps may be required for recovery to dissimilar machines.

Since Windows Bare Metal Recovery cannot interpret boot loaders or other operating systems, Bare Metal Recovery does not support dissimilar hardware restores on any dual or multi-boot system.

Information about the storage system that stores the Bare Metal Recovery backups. The administrator using Bare Metal Recovery must use a login account with full administrative access to the storage system. This is typically root for NetApp ONTAP systems and administrator for Open storage.
Information about the backup job and the node to recover.
Special drivers. Most required network drivers, SCSI drivers, or hardware drivers are on the Bare Metal Recovery disc or ISO image file. However, in some cases, a special driver from a vendor may be required. To prepare a required driver that is not on the Bare Metal Recovery CD for Bare Metal Recovery installation, download the driver to any supported storage media. The driver should be downloaded from the manufacturer or vendor website. These drivers are used for recovery later in the Bare Metal Recovery procedure. Drivers can be accessed via mapped network drives. Map network drives in Bare Metal Recovery by accessing the Map Network Drive window. In the Tools menu, select Map Network Drive. Other options include a CIFS Share and a USB drive that is mounted as a volume. New drivers can be downloaded by using the included internet browser. To access the internet, in the Tools menu, select Internet Browser.

Note. Bare Metal Recovery requires that the driver files be in .INF or .SYS formats. Driver files in a .ZIP or .EXE format must be extracted into a useful format before installation.

Considerations for Recovering a Windows Machine

The following are considerations for Bare Metal Recovery for Windows:

The source node must have at least 1 GB of memory. The source node also requires MSXML3 or later, which is generally installed by default.
Bare Metal Recovery supports recovery from dynamic disks. Recovering data that originated from a dynamic disk automatically sets the volume to a basic disk after recovery. If necessary, this setting can be changed back to dynamic after the recovery is complete by using the Windows management console. Recovery data from dynamic disks that span multiple physical drives are aggregated for storage in a single drive. This change in Bare Metal Recovery behavior has the distinct advantage of being more flexible, as the data transfer does not create any dependency on the original physical disk structure from the source system, thus allowing storage consolidation and restructuring. Recovery of data to an identical physical disk configuration might require manual steps or a version of Bare Metal Recovery predating the Bare Metal Recovery wizard.
Bare Metal Recovery supports recovery to physical or VMware virtual machines. Perform careful advanced testing to ensure required recovery in a given virtual machine environment.
Bare Metal Recovery supports recovery to a VMware virtual machine may require a specific SCSI and controller driver to load for the version of Windows used. LSI logic parallel is required for Windows 2003, Logic SAS is required for Windows 2008 or later. See the VMware knowledge base article Injecting SCSI controller device drivers into Windows.
Bare Metal Recovery supports recovery from Windows machines configured to boot using UEFI.

Note. When recovering a boot partition configured for UEFI, the bare metal machine must also be configured to boot with UEFI before restoring. Failure to properly configure the bare machine before recovery results in incomplete hardware adjustments affecting the success of the recovery. You are prompted when a selected backup is configured incorrectly.

Bare Metal Recovery records diagnostic logs in the event of a failure or error during a restore. These logs can be sent by e-mail by Bare Metal Recovery when the SMTP server information is provided.

Bare Metal Recovery and Windows Clusters

When recovering a cluster node using Bare Metal Recovery, a SAN or shared disk configuration must already be in place. For more information, read the Knowledge Base article 46084.

If a physical node of a cluster is being recovered and the remainder of the cluster is up and running, the recovered node joins the cluster automatically.

If the entire cluster is down, the cluster and all of its all shared disks may be recovered to a single physical node, effectively creating a single-node cluster. When convenient, recover the other cluster nodes. The recovery process joins the cluster automatically, restoring the cluster to full strength.

If a cluster is active, then before recovering shared volumes for the cluster, take those shared volumes offline manually using Windows Cluster Administrator. After recovering, move the shared volumes back to online for the cluster's active physical node. If the cluster is down, that is, there is no active node, then no such action is needed.

To recover a cluster quorum using Bare Metal Recovery, cluster services for all nodes in the cluster must be stopped. To provide connectivity and access to the shared drives as before, all SAN and Ethernet ports must be re-established. Additional manual cluster configuration steps might also be required in special circumstances.

See also. For more information about other dynamic disk recovery scenarios or recovering drives after the system boot drive has been recovered, seeAdditional Configuration Support for Windows Bare Metal Recovery.

For SAN cluster support, see

Cluster Support in a SAN in the DPX 4.9 Reference Guide.

Recovery Procedure on Windows

Preliminary Steps

Before running a recovery procedure, make sure the following steps are completed.

Schedule and run Bare Metal Recovery backups. See Running Backups.
Track information about the run Bare Metal Recovery backups. See Tracking Important Information.
Set up the bare machine. See Bare Machine Considerations.
Ensure all requirements for Bare Metal Recovery for Windows are met. See Requirements for Recovering a Windows Machine.

Note. If there is a failure, error, or problem at any step in the Windows Bare Metal Recovery process, collect the diagnostic logs and attach them to a customizable e-mail message.

Boot the Bare Machine

Boot up the bare machine from the Bare Metal Recovery disc or from the network. While the machine is booting, diagnostic messages may appear.

Because the bare machine serves as the restore destination, the bare machine must have network access to the storage system where the backup images reside. Note that access control on the storage system may need to be modified to allow restoration to the bare machine. After the bare machine is booted up, the Bare Metal Recovery user interface will be displayed.

Note. To recover a virtual cluster node, set up hardware connections for the cluster, including those for the bare machine.

The procedure for booting from a disc varies, but for most scenarios, adjust the BIOS configuration for the correct sequence of bootable devices. In many cases, when the computer is turned on, a message describes how to change the BIOS configuration.

After the bare machine boots up successfully, all the modules are loaded into RAM. It is then safe to eject the Bare Metal Recovery disc and use another disc to load special drivers or for other purposes.

Once the bare machine boots up, the Bare Metal Recovery Wizard opens.

Tip. On any messages where you are prompted to "press any key," do not use the Enter key.

Reconfigure Network (optional)

Optionally, reconfigure your network settings. This is typically needed if a Dynamic Host Communication Protocol server is not available or if a specific network interface card must be used.

Note. The NIC and IP address settings entered must provide access to the storage server that contains the required BMR backup.

On the Configuration menu, select Configure Network. The Network Properties dialog opens.
Configure the network card:
- If there is more than one NIC on the bare machine, select the appropriate network card from the Network Adapter list.
- If the DHCP server is available, Bare Metal Recovery automatically assigns the network information. Ifthe DHCP server is not available or if the autodetected information is undesirable, enter the required information:
  IP Address
  The IP address of the bare machine.
  Subnet Mask
  The subnet of the bare machine.
  Default Gateway
  The IP address of the computer that connects the local subnet to the network.
  DNS Server Option
  Select Obtain DNS server address automatically to automatically obtain the IP address of the DNS server. Select Use the following DNS server addresses to manually enter the IP address of the DNS server.
  Preferred DNS Server
  The primary domain name server. If a domain name server is not available or active, the field remains empty.
  Alternate DNS Server
  The secondary domain name server. If a domain name server is not available or active, the field remains empty.
Click OK. The System Check window opens.

Access the Internet (optional)

With a network connection established, the included Opera internet browser can be used for procedures such as downloading drivers, reviewing documentation, or transferring diagnostic logs. To access the Internet, in the Tools menu, select Internet Browser.

Run a System Check

The System Check window scans your current hardware configuration and verifies that the required drivers are installed correctly.

Bare Metal Recovery installs required drivers. Most are installed automatically from the Bare Metal Recovery disc. Hardware faults can also be addressed using the Device Configuration window.

The main requirements of Bare Metal Recovery are a functional network connection and access to adequate storage. The Next button is replaced with the Rescan button so you can run a hardware check after the drivers are updated to verify that the hardware issues are resolved.

Faults marked in yellow are non-essential faults that do not adversely affect the recovery process.
Faults marked in red are essential faults that must be addressed using the Device Configuration window.

To install missing device drivers:

Use the Device Configuration window to install the missing device drivers.

Copy the special driver files to a supported storage media.
Navigate to the Configuration menu.
Select View Device Configuration. A list of items that require drivers displays. To view all hardware components, clear the Display only Misconfigured devices option.
In the File Selection dialog, browse to the location of the driver on the supported storage media, select the correct Windows .inf file, which contains setup information, and click Open. In the Device dialog, the device description is updated and the Installed check mark appears.
If there are no hardware faults or all the red hardware faults are resolved, click Next to continue. The Recovery Point Settings window opens.

Enter the Recovery Point Source Settings

In the Recovery Point Settings window, do the following:

Enter the required information as follows:
Host Name
The IP address of the storage system that contains the required backup instances.
Note. For NetApp ONTAP Clustered Data ONTAP, use the SVM IP address and ensure that it has iSCSI enabled.
Type
The type of storage from which you are recovering. Choices include NetApp, Catalogic vStor, or Catalogic OSS (DPX Open Storage Server).
User Name
The User ID for logging into the storage system or SVM. Use an administrative account that has the appropriate access.
Password
The password for logging into the storage system with the User ID. Example: syspass.
Tip. Data input is case-sensitive for these fields.
Click Connect once all the information is entered accurately.
Select the required information to identify the recovery point:
Existing snapshot or Create new snapshot on volume
Select either an existing snapshot or to create a new snapshot on the volume.
Volume
Lists the names of each volume on the storage system that contains backup snapshots. Select a volume name.
Job
Lists the name of each backup job stored on the storage system for this node. A change in the Node Name selection automatically repopulates the selections offered in the Job Name list. Select a backup job name.
Snapshot
Lists the names of each snapshot stored on the storage system for this node. Select a snapshot name.
Client
Lists the name of each node that has one or more volume backups stored on the storage system. Select a client to restore.
Lists the names of each logical drive on the selected client. Check one or more drives to restore.

Note. When recovering a boot partition configured for UEFI, the bare machine must also be configured to boot with UEFI before restoring. A prompt appears if the recovery point selected is configured with a different boot interface than the bare machine. It is recommended that you address this issue prior to completing the recovery. Consult your hardware vendor documentation for more information on selecting the boot interface before proceeding.

Click Next.

Map the Disk Drives

The mapped drives of the source machine and the bare machine drives display. Using this window, one volume in the destination machine can support one or more partitions from the source machine if it does not exceed the storage capacity of the volume.

Tip. With the necessary connections between the bare machine and the backup source established, advanced users can use the command prompt to utilize existing Windows tools for selective recovery and other advanced maintenance procedures. To access the command prompt, select File and select open CMD prompt.

Optionally, prepare the backup partitions for mapping by shrinking them. This allows data to fit into a new partition that is smaller than the partition that was backed up from the original source machine.

To map partitions:

Optionally, shrink a partition:
1. Right-click on a partition and select Shrink. The Shrink window opens.
2. Adjust the amount of space to shrink in MB. The amount of space to shrink cannot exceed the size of available shrink space. The Shrink function is similar to a disk defragmentation.
3. Click Shrink to complete the Shrink operation and return to the Disk Mapping window.
Map the backup drives:
1. Optionally, remove any partitions from the drives of the Destination machine. Right-click on the drive and select Remove all Partition or click Remove all Partition.
2. Select a drive and use the arrow buttons to move the drive from the Backup pane to the DestinationMachine pane.
Click Next. The Restore Monitor opens and displays the mapped partitions.

Use the Restore Monitor to Complete Recovery

To complete the recovery:

Check the option Hardware Adjustment to support dissimilar hardware; examples of this are:
- Physical machine to virtual machine recovery.
- Virtual machine to physical machine recovery.
- Physical machine recovery to a physical machine with a different hardware configuration.
Click Proceed. Note that the actual speed of a recovery depends on the amount of data selected forrestore.
When the recovery is completed click Shutdown…. The Shutdown dialog opens.
Select Restart from the drop-down menu and then click OK.
Run a base backup of the newly recovered machine after recovery. The backup Catalog only contains the drives that were restored by the Bare Metal Recovery, all other drives that need to be backed up must be included manually.

Logs Collection for Windows

If there is a failure, error, or problem at any step in the Windows Bare Metal Recovery process, collect the diagnostic logs and attach them to a customizable email message. If a restore is completed, the diagnostic logs are available on the restore destination machine. Logs can also be sent by using the included internet browser. To access the Internet, in the Tools menu in the Bare Metal Recovery wizard, select Internet Browser.

Note. SMTP server information is required to send the diagnostic logs in an e-mail.

To view the log file:

Boot up the bare machine to launch the Bare Metal Recovery Wizard.
Navigate to the View menu and select Log File. After the recovery is completed, the log files are available for review in directory C:\temp.

To capture and transmit diagnostic logs:

In the Options menu, select Email Logs. The Email dialog opens.
Enter Sender/Recipient information and Server/Authentication information as requested.

Note. Include the e-mail address of the person handling the diagnostic troubleshooting in the To: field. To send diagnostic logs to multiple recipients, separate their email addresses with semicolons.

For a successful log file transmission, the bare machine must be able to access the network when connecting to the specified SMTP server.
Click OK. Bare Metal Recovery accumulates the diagnostic logs and sends them to the email recipient over the network.

Additional Steps for Recovery to Dissimilar Hardware

If a recovered Windows machine does not boot properly due to dissimilar hardware, the following additional steps can result in an operational recovery:

On the newly recovered machine, run the Microsoft Repair utility. Run Repair from the Windows Installation CD or Windows Recovery CD for the Operating System and Service Pack of the original source machine. When running Repair from the Windows Installation CD, click Enter to install Windows, then click the Repair option. For information about the Microsoft Repair utility, refer to the Microsoft documentation.
Repair may remove NIC drivers and reset desktop settings. After booting up successfully, manually reinstall NIC drivers and reset the desktop and other settings as needed.

Additional Configuration Support for Windows Bare Metal Recovery

Note. To ensure stability, perform careful advanced testing to determine if your Windows Bare Metal Recovery does not support specific configurations for your environment.

In the instances where Windows Bare Metal Recovery does not support the recovery of specific configurations, features, or storage architectures, use Windows Bare Metal Recovery to recover the booting volume, then boot the system. After making any additional system configuration changes, use the DPX management console to restore the remaining data into the required configuration.

BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation

The BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation utility is used for either of two purposes:

Creating a bootable USB drive to run the Bare Metal Recovery software on a Windows machine. The bootable USB drive can be used instead of an ISO file or Bare Metal Recovery disk to restore a baremachine.
Inserting driver software into the ISO image, enabling special driver installation during the BMR recovery process. This function is supported only for Windows x64 environments (2008 R2 or later).

Note. Before BMR ISO extraction, ensure the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1 Update is installed (adksetup.exe). It can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982. The update requires at least 6 GB of memory. Select only the Deployment Tools.

Installing the BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation Utility

This procedure must be performed for either of the two functions.

Go to Catalogic DPX on the MySupport website.
In the Installation & Upgrade section, click the Windows BMR ISO image file to download it.
Click to download the USBBMR ISOImage Extraction installation file.
Click the installation file to install the BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation utility on the Windows machine. Follow the instructions in the Setup Wizard.

Create a Bootable USB Drive

Use this procedure to create a bootable USB drive.

To run the BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation utility, click the desktop icon.
When the initial window opens, choose Copy ISO to USB. The Copy to USB screen opens.

Click the Image button to select the location of the BMR image (ISO) file.
Insert a USB flash drive with at least a 1.1.GB capacity on the Windows machine.
Check Display fixed media, and select the drive from the USB Drive drop-down box.
Click Write.

Warning! The drive will be reformatted before the ISO file is copied to the USB drive.

Note. You can also perform this operation to a bootable, external hard disk.

Click Exit to close the wizard.

Inserting the Drivers into the ISO Image

Use this procedure to insert driver software into the ISO image.

To run the BMR ISO Image Extraction and Driver Installation utility, click the desktop icon.
When the initial window opens, choose Extract ISO and Add Drivers.
In the Extract and Mount window, click the Image button to select the ISO file from your local drive.
Click the Path button. The Open dialog box opens. Click Make a New Folder to create a new folder for extracting and mounting the ISO image. This is a temporary local directory that must be empty before extracting the files.
Click Next. The progress bar at the bottom of the window shows the location and progress of the file extraction.
When the Add Drivers window opens, select the OS version (All, 2008 R2, 2012+) from the drop-down box on the right side of the screen.
Click Add Drivers. The Open dialog box opens. Select the path and filename of the first driver that will be inserted into the ISO image. The driver filename and location appear in the Driver List in the Add Drivers window. Repeat this step for each driver you want to add.
Click Next. The BMR ISO image is updated with the selected drivers and saved to the temporary folder.
Click Save. The Burn window opens. The image file can be saved to a USB drive or as an ISO file.
- To save to a USB drive, insert a USB flash drive with at least a 1.1 GB capacity on the Windows machine. Then, select USB under Save to, and specify the drive volume. Click Burn.
- To save the updated BMR image file to an ISO file, select ISO File and then click ISO path. The SaveISO files dialog box opens. Select the folder where the new ISO file will be saved and click Save. Then, select the Boot type (BIOS or UEFI) and click Burn.
Click Exit to close the wizard.

To recover the bare machine, insert the USB flash drive into the bare machine, and follow the instructions in Recovery Procedure on Windows above.

Last updated 15 days ago