Rapid Recovery 6.1.3

Understanding driver injection in a boot CD

The boot CD image requires storage drivers to recognize the drives of the server, and network adapter drivers in order to communicate with the Rapid Recovery Core over the network.

A generic set of Windows 8.1 x64 storage controller and network adapter drivers are included automatically when you generate a boot CD for Windows. This satisfies the requirements of newer systems. Systems from other manufacturers or older systems may require you to inject storage controller or network adapter drivers when creating the boot CD. If you discover the boot CD you created does not contain the drivers necessary to complete the restore, you can also load drivers on to the target machine using the URC. For more information, see Loading drivers using the Universal Recovery Console.

When creating the boot CD, driver injection is used to facilitate interoperability between the recovery console, network adapter, and storage on the target server.

Data restored from the recovery point includes drivers for the hardware previously in place. If performing a bare metal restore to dissimilar hardware, then you must also inject storage controller drivers into the operating system being restored using the URC after the data has been restored to the drive, This allows the restored operating system to boot using the new set of hardware. After the OS is booted after the restore, you can then download and install any additional drivers needed by the OS to interact with its new hardware.

Creating a boot CD ISO image

A boot CD is the term Rapid Recovery uses to refer to the portable storage location of the ISO image reserved for performing a bare metal restore (BMR). The image includes the Rapid Recovery Universal Recovery Console (URC).

To perform a BMR on a machine, you must start the machine from the boot CD, which launches the URC. The URC is what makes it possible to connect the BMR target to the location of the recovery point you want to use to complete the restore.

From the Rapid Recovery Core Console where the server you need to restore is protected, in the icon bar, click the More menu, and then click Boot CDs.

On the Boot CDs page, click Create Boot CD.

The Create Boot CD dialog box displays.

In the Create Boot CD dialog box, in the Output path text box, enter the location where you want to store the boot CD ISO image.

NOTE: The file extension must be .iso. When specifying the path, use only alphanumeric characters, the hyphen, the backslash (only as a path delimiter), and the period (only to separate host names and domains). The letters a to z are not case sensitive. Do not use spaces. No other symbols or punctuation characters are permitted.

Under Connection Options, do one of the following:

◦

To obtain the IP address dynamically using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), select Obtain IP address automatically.

◦

To specify a static IP address for the URC, select Use the following IP address, and then enter the following information:

▪

▪

▪

▪

NOTE: You must specify all four of these fields.

If you require remote access to the recovery console, and you have UltraVNC installed, under UltraVNC Options, complete the following steps:

NOTE: UltraVNC lets you manage the URC remotely while it is in use. You cannot log on using Microsoft Terminal Services while using the boot CD.

Select Add UltraVNC.

Enter your UltraVNC password.

Enter the UltraVNC port. The default port is 5900.

NOTE: The UltraVNC Options are only available if you already have UltraVNC installed. To make these options available, go to http://www.uvnc.com/downloads/ultravnc/ to download UltraVNC version 1.0.9.1 or later for x64 architecture. Install it and save the winvnc.exe file to C:\Program Files\AppRecovery\Core\BootCdKit\UltraVnc_x64\.

If you plan to restore to dissimilar hardware, inject the appropriate storage controller and other drivers for your target system by completing the following steps:

NOTE: Not all versions of Windows are compatible with automatic driver injection. If your operating system is not compatible, manually save drivers to C:\Program Files\AppRecovery\Core\BootCdKit\Drivers\.

Download the drivers from the server manufacturer’s Web site and unpack them.

Compress each driver into a .zip file using an appropriate compression utility (for example, WinZip).

In the Create Boot CD dialog box, in the Drivers pane, click Add an Archive of Drivers.

Navigate through the filing system to locate the compressed driver file, select the file, and then click Open.

The driver file appears in the Drivers pane of the Create Boot CD dialog box.

Repeat Step c and Step d, as appropriate, until you add all necessary drivers.

In the Drivers pane, select the drivers that you want to inject.

For more information about injecting drivers, see .

Click Create Boot CD.

Rapid Recovery creates the boot CD and saves it with the file name you provided.

To monitor the progress of this task, go to the icon bar and click the Events icon.

For more information about monitoring Rapid Recovery events, see Viewing events using tasks, alerts, and journal pages.

When the ISO image creation is complete, a record of the image appears on the Boot CDs page, which you can access from the More menu in the icon bar.

To access the ISO image, you can navigate to the output path you specified or click the link on the Boot CDs page to save the image to a location from which you can then load it onto the new system, such as a network drive.

Transferring the boot CD ISO image to media

When you create the boot CD file, it is stored as an ISO image in the path you specified. You must be able to mount this image as a drive on the server on which you are performing a bare metal restore.

You can burn the boot CD ISO image onto compact disc (CD) or digital video disk (DVD) media accessible at system startup.

When you start the machine from the boot CD, the Universal Recovery Console launches automatically.

If performing a BMR on a virtual machine, this step is not required. Simply load the ISO image in a drive and edit settings for that VM to start from that drive.

Loading the boot CD and starting the target machine

After you create the boot CD image, you need to boot the target server with the newly created boot CD.

To connect to the Rapid Recovery Core Console or to use Chromium for downloading additional drivers, you must first load an Ethernet controller and network adapter. For more information, see Loading drivers using the Universal Recovery Console.

NOTE: If you created the boot CD using DHCP, you must capture the IP address and password.

On the new server, load the boot CD image from the appropriate location, and then start the server from the boot CD image to load the Rapid Recovery Agent software and Win PE 5.1.

The target machine displays a blue Quest screen with three icon buttons at the top of the screen.

To open the Rapid Recovery Universal Recovery Console (URC) user interface, click the Quest icon at the top of the screen.

The IP address and password for the machine appear under Authentication.

NOTE: A new temporary password is generated each time the machine is started with the boot CD. Write down the IP address displayed in the Network Adapters Settings pane and the authentication password displayed in the Authentication pane. You will need this information later during the data recovery process to log back on to the console.

NOTE: If there is no IP address provided, load the Ethernet controller and network adapter.

If you want to change the IP address, select it and click Change.

NOTE: If you specified an IP address in the Create Boot CD dialog box, the Universal Recovery Console uses it and displays it in the Network Adapter settings screen.

The machine is ready for you to connect to the Core, select a recovery point, and continue the bare metal restore process.