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Avamar 7.0 BMR on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
We're trying to do a bare metal restore of an Exchange 2010 mailbox server using Avamar. We've booted the new server from the WinPE CD, and followed the prompts in the Avamar Bare Metal Recovery Wizard. Once the restore completes, the server OS boots, and everything appears to be there until we click the start menu. Programs are not populated as expected, like Exchange Server, EMC PowerPath, Emulex OnCommand, and anything else other than what would be on a blank Windows server after a fresh install. All the programs appear under C:\Program Files, and they can be launched from there. Older versions cannot be uninstalled, though. In Programs and Features in the Control Panel, clicking the uninstall button brings up an error about the program already being gone. Attempts to install the newer version of Emulex OnCommand Manager fail with an error about the old version still being installed.
We've done many BMR with Avamar 6.1, and we're following the same basic process as before. Where are we going wrong? We've got weekly System State backups using the VSS Plugin, and daily C: drive backups using the Windows File System plugin.
Has anyone else seen this problem before, and what did you do to solve it?
Do we need to follow the BMR with a restore of the C: drive? We did not do that before when doing restores using 6.1.
ionthegeek
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August 8th, 2014 05:00
You should not have to restore the C drive after a BMR restore. The C drive will almost certainly be a critical volume for any VSS System State backup since it's the default boot and system volume.
Do you have any excludes defined in avtar.cmd on the client? We had a previous case where the customer didn't realize that excludes in avtar.cmd apply to both filesystem and VSS System State backups and had specified '*.dat' as an exclude pattern. This led to the restored system failing to boot because the registry hives had not been backed up.
I would also recommend examining the backup logs for the client if they are still available to ensure that the backup completed successfully and there were no exceptions or errors. If the original client is gone, support can walk you through restoring the avtar log from the Avamar server.
If this is a critical issue (not a DR test, for example), I would recommend contacting support as soon as possible.
Vinn2
27 Posts
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August 8th, 2014 06:00
We've got excludes for C:\ProgramData\Symantec defined in the dataset.
We've taken several backups of the clients, checking different boxes and trying different things to figure out the right combination of settings to get this to work right.
One of my colleagues thinks they've figured it out. As soon as I get the details, I'll post them here.
Vinn2
27 Posts
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August 8th, 2014 07:00
In consultation with support, we added --x29=14 as a parameter when we did a backup, and were able to BMR with that backup with the desired end result.
I did some research and found that this parameter tells the backup to ignore NTFS links. What does that mean? Should I put this in my VSS System State dataset and apply it to all my Windows servers? Obviously, I can't test BMR functionality with hundreds of clients, but I need to know if this is a parameter that will help in cases like my Exchange Server, and not hurt in cases where it is not needed.
Can anyone in the community provide some guidance?