NetWorker: Windows BBB command-line recovery: How to do browsable recovery

Block Based Backups (BBB) can be recovered using a save set recovery from the command line.

Using the switches "-I -" (dash upper case "i," dash) on the Windows command line allows the recover to wait for input.

This waiting allows the mounted copy of the backup can be reviewed in another command window with the Windows "dir" command.

Stepping through this process, in this example, the need is to recover a directory C:\foo to C:\RESTORE:

1. Use the following recover command syntax:

   recover -vvv -d <destination> -S <SSID> -I -

   Example:

   recover -vvv -d C:\RESTORE -S 4271064190 -I -

2. GIVE THIS COMMAND SOME TIME TO WORK, it waits for input after the line.

   96259:recover: BBB File level recovery has been requested

   In my lab, the C:\ has 60 GB of data, and it took me almost 4 minutes to complete the entire process, as noted in the output in step (8) below.

3. Scroll back through the output of the recover command to the line.
   Use the following to list the volume's content.

   dir \\?\kmxxxx\\

   Where "xxxx" is some number that is unique to your recover session.
   For example, use the following to list the volume's content.

   dir \\?\km4464\\

4. Launch another Windows command prompt and enter.

   dir \\?\kmxxxx\ | findstr /i foo

   NOTE: Allow some time for this to return. If "dir" does not return, is foo in a subdirectory? This is expounded upon below.

   Example:

   C:\Users\Administrator>dir \\?\km4464\\ | findstr /i foo
   12/06/2016  04:46 PM    <DIR>          foo
   
   C:\Users\Administrator>

5. If the command in finds what we are after foo, then go back to the recover command and enter it in the conventional form of C:\foo

6. After entering C:\foo, type CTRL + z which outputs to the screen "^Z"

7. Now press Enter.

   NOTE: This recovers only C:\foo to C:\RESTORE in our example.

   The output looks like this, here I recovered two directories C:\foo and C:\emc:

   Save-set ID '4271064190' has been mounted for recovery at 'C:\<PATH>\nsr\tmp\BBB\<client_name>\4271064190\'
   96259:recover: BBB File level recovery has been requested
   C:\foo
   C:\emc
   ^Z
   Folder: C:\foo restored successfully
   Folder: C:\emc restored successfully
   File level recovery of save-set ID '4271064190' was successful
   Cleanup of save-set ID '4271064190' was successful.
   Recovery of BBB saveset 4271064190 completed successfully
   Total time taken for recovery: 0 hr(s) 03 min(s) 58 sec(s)
   C:\Users\Administrator>

If dir does not return, is foo in a subdirectory?

If the thing we are looking for is not found at the top level, is it somewhere else?

C:\Users\Administrator>dir /S /B \\?\km2256\\ | findstr /i /c:"foo.txt"
\\?\km2256\foo\foo.txt

This testing was done with NetWorker for Windows 8.2.2.6.