Performing a Bare Metal Restore for a Windows Machine (4036073)

This article describes how to perform bare metal recovery for Windows machines using AppAssure 5.

In AppAssure 5, Bare Metal Recovery provides the ability to restore an entire system back to the original or to new dissimilar hardware. For example, a physical system can be restored to a virtual or cloud platform, and vice versa. This functionality separates the operating system from a specific platform, providing portability.

Bare Metal Recovery (also called Bare Metal Restore (BMR)) is most often used in disaster recovery scenarios or migration projects. For example, it can be used to deploy new hardware in case of disaster and also facilitate the migration to a public or private cloud.

Note:  If an Administrative Task, such as Disk Defragmentation was being run on the Agent to be restored at the time the Recovery Point was created, the Bare Metal Restore will not be successful.

The process to perform a BMR includes creating a boot CD image, burning the image to disk, booting up the target server from disk, connecting to the recovery console instance, mapping volumes, initiating the recovery, and then monitoring the process. Once the bare metal restore is complete, you can continue with the task of loading the operating system and the software applications on the restored server, followed by your unique settings and configuration.

Follow these steps to perform a BMR (for the latest detailed information and instructions on BMR, refer to the AppAssure 5 User Guide, located on the Tech Docs page).

Prerequisites for Performing a Bare Metal Restore for a Windows Machine

Before you can begin the process of performing a bare metal restore for a Windows machine, you must ensure that the following conditions and criteria exist:

• Backups of the server and the functioning AppAssure 5 Core
• Hardware to restore (new or old, similar or dissimilar)
• Disk or storage equal to or greater than the original size of the backed up disk or volume
  NOTE: Restoring to a smaller disk/volume is not supported.
• Blank CD and CD burning software
• VNC viewer (optional)
• Windows 7 PE (32-bit) compatible storage drivers and network adapter drivers for the target machine
• Storage controller, RAID, AHCI, and chipset drivers for the target operating system
  NOTE: The storage controller drivers are only needed if the restore being performed is to dissimilar hardware.

Create a Boot CD

1. On the Tools tab of the Core Console, select the Boot CDs menu.
2. In the Actions menu at the right of the screen, select Create Boot CD.
3. In the Output Path text box, enter a name for the Boot CD ISO.
   NOTE: What you enter here is the ISO path where to store the boot image on the Core server. If the share on which you want to store the image is low on disk space, you can set the path as needed; for example, D:\filename.iso.  Also note the file extension must be .iso. When specifying the path, use only alphanumeric characters, the hyphen, and the period (only to separate host names and domains). The letters a to z are case-insensitive. Do not use spaces. No other symbols or punctuation characters are permitted.
4. To configure this Boot CD to use DHCP, in the Connection area, enter the IP address or DHCP network settings for the recovery console. Optionally, if you leave the text boxes set to the default, 0.0.0.0, for all connections, the recovery console obtains the network settings from DHCP.
5. In the Options pane, enter the VNC options in the Ultra VNC area, if needed. The VNC settings let you manage the recovery console remotely while it is in use.
   NOTE: This step is optional. If you need remote access to the recovery console, you will need to use and configure the Ultra VNC. You cannot log on using Microsoft Terminal Services while using the boot CD.
6. You may also add custom drivers to this Boot CD in the Add a Driver section.
   NOTE: AppAssure 5 automatically injects Windows 7 PE 32-bit compatible drivers in the boot CD.
7. Click Create Boot CD to continue.
8. Once the Boot CD has been created, to access the ISO image, navigate to the output path you specified, or you can click the link to download the image to a location from which you can then load it on the new system; for example, network drive. NOTE: If you are restoring to a physical machine, you should burn the ISO image to a CD or DVD. If restoring to a Virtual Machine (VM) the ISO may be mounted as a virtual CD ROM.

Boot the Target Machine

1. Boot the target machine with the Boot CD.
2. Specify to Boot from CD-ROM, which loads Windows 7 and starts the AppAssure Universal Recovery Console interface.
3. Once the machine is booted to the Boot CD, the IP and authentication password will be displayed. You will need to note this information as it is required by the Core Server to begin recovery.
4. Once booted, this machine will be ready for the user to connect to it from the Core Server to begin the Bare Metal Restoration process.

Restore the Machine

1. In the Core Console, browse to the Recovery Point of the Server you wish to restore. Select a Recovery Point and click the Rollback button.
2. In the Rollback dialog box, under Choose Destination, select Recovery Console Instance, and then enter the IP address and password that was displayed on the AppAssure Boot CD.
3. Click Load Volumes.
4. From the Volume Mapping pane on the Rollback dialog box, specify which volumes to load and how to map them to the disks on the new machine. This can be done for you automatically or you can manually assign them.
5. Click Begin Rollback to begin the recovery. The summary screen will show statistics and progress of the recovery.

Reboot the Target Machine

1. Navigate back to the new server, and, in the AppAssure Universal Recovery Console interface, select Reboot to start the machine.
2. Specify to start Windows normally.
3. Log on to the machine. The system should be restored to its state prior to the bare metal restore.