Rapid Recovery 6.3 - User Guide

Restoring volumes from a recovery point

1. To restore a volume on a protected machine, navigate to the Rapid Recovery Core Console and click Restore from the Rapid Recovery button bar.

   The Restore Machine Wizard appears.

2. From the Machines page, select the protected machine for which you want to restore data, and then click Next.

   The Recovery Points page appears.

3. From the list of recovery points, search for the snapshot you want to restore to the protected machine.
   If necessary, use the buttons at the bottom of the page to display additional pages of recovery points.

   Optionally, to limit the number of recovery points showing in the Recovery Points page of the wizard, you can filter by volumes (if defined) or by creation date of the recovery point.
4. Click any recovery point to select it, and then click Next.

   The Destination page appears.

5. On the Destination page, choose the machine to which you want to restore data as follows:
   • To restore data from the selected recovery point to the same machine, and if the volumes you want to restore do not include the system volume, then select Recover to a protected machine, verify that the destination machine is selected, and then click Next.

     The Volume Mapping page appears. Proceed to step 9.

   • To restore data from the selected recovery point to a different protected machine (for example, replace the contents of Machine2 with data from Machine1), then select Recover to a protected machine, select the destination machine from the list, and then click Next.

     The Volume Mapping page appears. Proceed to step 9.

   • If you want to restore from the selected recovery point to the same machine or a different machine using a boot CD, this process is considered a bare metal restore (BMR). For information about BMR, see Bare metal restore.

   NOTE: Performing a BMR has specific requirements, based on the operating system of the machine you want to restore. To understand these prerequisites, see Prerequisites for performing a bare metal restore for Windows or Linux machines.

   If the volumes you want to restore include the system volume, then select Recover to any target machine using a Boot CD. This option prompts you to create a boot CD.

   • To continue and create the boot CD with information from the selected recovery point using the Restore Machine Wizard, click Next and proceed to Performing a bare metal restore using the Restore Machine Wizard.
   • If you have already created the boot CD and the target machine has been started using the boot CD, then proceed to step 8 of the topic Performing a bare metal restore using the Restore Machine Wizard.

   If you want to restore from a recovery point to a system volume (for example, the C:/ drive of the agent machine named Machine1), this process is also considered a BMR. Select Recover to any target machine using a Boot CD. This option prompts you to create a boot CD.

   • To continue and create the boot CD with information from the selected recovery point using the Restore Machine Wizard, click Next and proceed to Performing a bare metal restore using the Restore Machine Wizard. .
   • If you have already created the boot CD, then proceed to step 6.
6. Start the machine you want to restore to using the boot CD. For more information, for BMR on a Windows machine, see Loading the boot CD and starting the target machine and for BMR on a Linux machine, see Loading the Live DVD and starting the target machine.
7. On the Core server, in the Destination page of the Restore Machine Wizard, select I already have a Boot CD running on the target machine, and then enter the information about the machine to which you want to connect described in the following table.

   Table 135: Machine information

   Text Box	Description
   IP Address	The IP address of the machine to which you want to restore. This is identical to the IP address displayed in the URC.
   Authentication Key	The specific password to connect to the selected server. This is identical to the Authentication Key displayed in the URC.

8. Click Next.

   If the connection information you entered matches the URC, and if the Core and the target server can identify each other properly on the network, then the volumes for the selected recovery point are loaded. The Disk Mapping page appears.

   To complete your BMR from the Restore Machine Wizard, proceed to step 9 of the topic Performing a bare metal restore using the Restore Machine Wizard.

   NOTE: Rapid Recovery supports FAT32 and ReFS partitions. Only full restore and BMR are supported as a driver limitation exists with ReFS. Restore is implemented in user mode, VM export, and so on. If a Core is protecting at least one agent volume that contains the ReFS file system, it should be installed on Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2016, which provide native support of ReFS. Otherwise, functionality is limited and operations that involve such things as mounting a volume image do not work. The Rapid Recovery Core Console presents applicable error messages in these occurrences. Bare metal restore of Storage Spaces disks configuration (a feature of Windows 8.1) is also not supported in this release. For details, see the Rapid Recovery 6.3 Installation and Upgrade Guide.

9. On the Volume Mapping page, for each volume in the recovery point that you want to restore, select the appropriate destination volume. If you do not want to restore a volume, in the Destination Volumes column, select Do not restore.

   NOTE: You must restore at least one volume.

10. If restoring a machine protected by Rapid Recovery Agent, skip to step 14.
11.  If restoring an agentlessly protected machine, review the Restore all configuration data option and do one of the following:
    • If you want to restore backed-up VM configurations from the recovery point, select this option.
    • If you want to restore data only and not VM configurations, clear this option.

      For more information, including an explanation of when this option is selected or cleared by default, see VMware VM configuration backup and restore.

12. Click Next.
13. For agentlessly protected machines, if a Warnings page appears, read the message, make changes if necessary, and then click Next. Skip to step 18.
14. Select Show advanced options and then do the following:
    • For restoring to Windows machines, if you want to use Live Recovery, select Live Recovery.

      Using the Live Recovery instant recovery technology in Rapid Recovery, you can instantly recover or restore data to your physical machines or to virtual machines from stored recovery points of Windows machines, which includes Microsoft Windows Storage Spaces. Live Recovery is not available for Linux machines or VMs using agentless protection.

    • If you want to force the selected volumes to dismount before the restore begins, select Force Dismount.
     

    Caution: If you do not force a dismount before restoring data, the restore may fail with an error stating that the volume is in use.

15. Click Next.
16. On the Dismount Databases page, if the volumes you want to restore contain Oracle, SQL or Microsoft Exchange databases, you are prompted to dismount them. If you want to remount these databases automatically after the restore is complete, select Automatically remount all databases after the recovery point is restored. Otherwise, clear this option.

    NOTE: The appropriate VSS writer captures snapshots of database in backup mode. If you do choose not to remount all databases automatically (the default option), then after you restore, you must manually start the databases.

17. Click Next.
    The Warning page may appear and prompt you to close all programs on the volumes that you want to restore. If it does, click Next again.
18. On the Summary page, select the option IMPORTANT! I understand that this operation will overwrite selected volumes with the data from the selected recovery point to acknowledge that you understand the consequences of a volume restore.

    Caution: This option emphasizes the consequence that any data that was saved on the selected volume after the date and time of the selected recovery point is lost upon restore.

19. Click Finish.

Restoring a directory or file using Windows Explorer

1. Mount the recovery point that contains the data you want to restore. For details, see Mounting a recovery point.
2. 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.
3. 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

1. Mount the recovery point that contains the data you want to restore. For details, see Mounting a recovery point.
2. 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.
3. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the machine location to where you want to restore the data. Right-click and select Paste with Permissions.

   NOTE: In this step, if the Paste with Permissions command is disabled on the right-click menu, then Windows Explorer is not aware of the files that you want to copy. Repeat step 2 to enable the Paste with Permissions command on the right-click menu.

    

Restoring clusters and cluster nodes

A restore is the process of restoring the volumes on a machine from recovery points. For a server cluster, you perform a restore at the node, or machine, level. This section provides guidelines for performing a restore for cluster volumes.