How to Restore VMware VM Configuration Files (4378006)

Rather than restoring a complete working VM, sometimes it might be necessary just to restore a virtual machine configuration file or just one of multiple virtual storage file. The follow document list the steps to complete such recovery operation. This procedure works regardless if file-indexing is enable or disable.

Follow these steps to restore the VMware virtual machine configuration and/or virtual storage files:

1. From the left navigation pane, click Create Restore Job.
2. On the Create Restore Job - Choose Saveset screen, locate the backup created with the NetVault Plugin for VMWare with the files to be restored.
3. Press the [🔄️Restore] button.
4. On the Create Selection Set screen, expand the nodes by clicking on [+] and select the VM that will be restored.
   • Unselect the .vmdk files if virtual storage devices don't need to be restored; depending on the size of the virtual drives, restoration of these files could increase the restore job duration significantly.
   • If the saveset has file indexing enable, DO NOT expand the Volumes to uncheck their content. Doing so will cause the job to fail with entries indicating Ignoring unsupported node type selected for restore.
5. Press the [📝Edit Plugin Options].
6. Navigate to the Restore Files tab.
7. Choose the Files Restore radio button.
   • If this radio button is not selected, the job will fail with error message "Please select 'Restore files from backup' and set restore path in the restore options."
8. On the Target directory field, type in the location on the VMWare Proxy where the file/s will be restored.
   • If the Target directory field is empty, the job will fail with error message "Please select 'Restore files from backup' and set restore path in the restore options."
   • Create Directory Path explicitly will create the directories specified on the Target directory field. If this option is not selected and the directory is missing when the restore job is running, it will fail with the error message "Restore directory '[Target directory]' does not exist or has incorrect permissions."
   • If the selected location runs out of space during the restore job, it will fail with the error message "Failed to prepare target FileSystem for the restore."
9. The option Split Restored Virtual Disks is used to restore virtual disk/s into 2 GiB files. When the box is not checked, the plug-in restores a single disk .vmdk file. This option is only available for savesets created using Plug-in for VMware version 10.0.5 and later.
10. Press the [✔️OK] button to save the options.
11. Press the [>Next] button to advance to the next screen.
12. On the Create Restore Job, the Target Client drop down list can be used to specify an alternate VMWare Proxy to run the restore job.
13. Press the [Save and Submit] button to run the restore job.