How to Recover Files or Folders Using Rapid Recovery (4038682)

This article serves as a “How-To” guide on recovering a file or folder from a Rapid Recovery backup.

• Valid recovery points and a functioning Rapid Recovery Core.

• Rapid Recovery Basic Administration Course - Web Based Training (WBT)
• Rapid Recovery Administration: Module 6 – Granular Recovery

You can use Windows Explorer to copy and paste directories and files from a mounted recovery point to any Windows machine. This can be helpful when you want to distribute only a portion of a recovery point to your users.

When you copy directories and files, the access permissions of the user who is performing the copy operation are used and applied to the pasted directories and files. If you want to restore directories and files to your users while preserving original file permissions (for example, when restoring a user’s folder on a file server).

Mount the recovery point that contains the data you want to restore

In Rapid Recovery, you can mount a recovery point for a Windows machine to access stored data through a local file system.

NOTE: To mount a Linux recovery point with the local mount utility, see Mounting a recovery point volume on a Linux machine.

NOTE: When mounting recovery points from data restored from a machine that has data deduplication enabled, you must also enable deduplication on the Core server.

Complete these steps to perform this action

• In the Rapid Recovery Core Console, navigate to the machine that you want to mount to a local file system.
  • The Summary page appears for the selected protected machine.
• Click the Recovery Points menu. The Recovery Points page appears for the selected machine.
• Optionally, in the Recovery Points pane, from the list of recovery points, click the right arrow symbol to expand the recovery point detail, showing volumes included in the recovery point.
• In the row for the recovery point that you want to mount, click and from the drop-down menu, select Mount.
  • The Mount Wizard appears, displaying the Volumes page.
• On the Volumes page, select each volume of the recovery point that you want to mount, and then click Next.
  • The Mount Options page of the Mount Wizard appears.
• In the Mount Options page, edit the settings for mounting a recovery point as described in the following table.

Read-only: This option lets you mount the recovery point as read-only.

Read-only with previous writes: This option mounts the recovery point as read-only and includes any changes that were made in your previous mount as Writable. If the recovery point is unmounted and mounted again as Writable, the previous changes will be lost and the files will be loaded as their original version.

Writable: When accessing your data with this option, the changes will only be applied to a temporary copy of your files. The original Recovery Point will not be modified, it will stay as it originally is. 

• Click Finish to mount the recovery point.

NOTE: If you want to copy directories or files from a mounted recovery point to another Windows machine, you can use Windows Explorer to copy them with default permissions or original file access permissions. For details, see Restoring a directory or file using Windows Explorer to Restoring a directory or file and preserving permissions using Windows Explorer. 8 Optionally, while the task is in process, you can view its progress from the Running Tasks drop-down menu on the Core Console, or you can view detailed information on the Events page. For more information about monitoring Rapid Recovery events, see Viewing events using tasks, alerts, and journal.

• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the mounted recovery point and select the directories and files that you want to restore. Right-click and select Copy.
• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the machine location to where you want to restore the data. Right-click and select Paste.

Restoring a directory or file and preserving permissions using Windows Explorer
You can use Windows Explorer to copy and paste directories and files from a mounted recovery point to any Windows machine while preserving file access permissions.

For example, if you need to restore a folder accessed only by specific users on a file server, you can use the Copy and Paste with Permissions commands to ensure that the restored files retain the permissions that restrict access. In this way, you can avoid having to manually apply permissions to the restored directories and files.

NOTE: The Paste with Permissions command is installed with Rapid Recovery Core and Agent software. It is not available in the Local Mount Utility.

Complete these steps to perform this action

• Mount the recovery point using the steps above that contains the data you want to restore.
• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the mounted recovery point and select the directories and files that you want to restore. Right-click and select Copy.
• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the machine location to where you want to restore the data. Right-click and select Paste with Permissions.

Dismounting recovery points

After you have completed your file/folder restore, it is a best practice to dismount the recovery point. 

NOTE: When dismounting a recovery point mounted remotely, the action is referred to as disconnecting.

Complete the steps in this procedure to dismount recovery points that are mounted on the Core.

• In the Rapid Recovery Core Console, from the icon bar, click More (button next to Settings with three vertical dots button) and then select Mounts.
  • The Mounts page appears.
  • There is a pane for Local Mounts (recovery points mounted from the Core) and another for Remote Mounts (recovery points mounted using the Local Mount Utility).
  • In each pane, the respective mounted recovery points appears in a list.
• To dismount local mounts, in the Local Mounts pane, do the following:
  • Select the local mount point or points you want to dismount.
    • To dismount all recovery points, click the checkbox in the title bar of the Local Mounts table to select all mount points.
    • To dismount one or more recovery points, click the checkbox in the first column of each row representing the mount point you want to disconnect.
  • Click Dismount. A confirmation dialog box appears.
  • Click to confirm that you want to dismount the selected recover points. The local recovery points dismount.

NOTE: If toast alerts are enabled, you may see an alert that the appropriate mount points are being dismounted.

• To disconnect recovery points mounted remotely, in the Remote Mounts pane, do the following:
  • Select the remote mount point or points you want to disconnect.
    • To disconnect all recovery points, click the checkbox in the title bar of the Remote Mounts table to select all mount points.
    • To disconnect one or more recovery points, click the checkbox in the first column of each row representing the mount point you want to disconnect.
  • Click  Disconnect. A confirmation dialog box appears.
  • Click to confirm that you want to disconnect the selected recover points. The local recovery points disconnected.

NOTE: If toast alerts are enabled, you may see an alert that the appropriate mount points are being disconnected.

• Confirm that the previously mounted recovery points no longer appear in the Local Mounts or Remote Mounts list, as appropriate.