Deployment KB: How to perform a NetWorker Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) recovery procedure

Environment:   
NetWorker

Task:  
Launch a bare metal recovery (BMR) procedure used to restore a client operating system to a prior state on the same source client or on a different destination (physical or virtual).

This is done booting the system from a recovery image that is downloaded from the Dell EMC Online Support page https://download.emc.com/downloads/DL87118_NetWorker-9.2.1-Windows-BMR-Wizard-x64-vSphere.iso?source=OLS. (this is a disk image file)

Resolution:   

Prerequisites:  

• The source and target hosts use the same processor architecture.

• The hardware on the target host is operational.

• The target hosts has a minimum of 512 MB of RAM.

• The target host startup hard disk capacity must be larger or the same size as on the source host, regardless of the amount of space actually in use. If the disk is smaller by a single byte, BMR fails.

Windows BMR limitations and considerations:  

Dynamic disks
A BMR recovery does not bring dynamic disk volumes online. After the BMR recovery completes, use Windows Disk Manager to bring the dynamic disks back online.

NTFS and ReFS

• Only NTFS and ReFS file systems are recognized as critical volumes.

• Although the backup of the DISASTER_RECOVERY:\ save set fails, NetWorker will backup, the contents of the partition and the data is available for an online recovery only.

• To ensure a successful backup of the DISASTER_RECOVERY:\ save set, install all services or applications on an NTFS or ReFS volume.

Critical Volumes
Windows BMR will restore only the critical volumes. All other disks on the system are not touched by the restore and the data on them is preserved. In order to list critical volumes, run the command:  

The output lists all critical volumes that are part of the restore:  

C:\Users\Administrator>save -o VSS:LCV=yes

174411:save: Step (1 of 5) for PID-1756: save has been started on the client 'hostname'.

175312:save: Identified a save for the manual backup with PID-1756 on the client

'hostname'. Updating the total number of steps from 5 to 7.

175313:save: Step (2 of 7) for PID-1756: Running the backup on the client hostname' for the selected save sets.

3817:save: Using hostname as server

The following volumes are determined as critical by the system state writers:  

C:\ (disk num 0)

Information to gather prior to beginning

1. Network information of the source machine (hostname, domain, IP address(es), macaddress(es), DNS server list (if present).

2. If DNS is not used, export the /etc/hosts list (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts).

3. Output of command trace print.

Restore Procedure

1. Power on the machine with the bootable ISO attached and boot from CD/DVD.

2. If DNS is not present, close the wizard and in the Windows Pre-installation Environment prompt, type:  

   Cd x:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
   Notepad hosts

3. Attach, in the notepad, the hosts information that was saved prior to beginning.

4. Restart the wizard by running:  

   Cd x:\Program Files\EMC Networker\nsr\wizard
   Javaw -jar WinPEWizard.jar

5. Set correct time and date:
   
   

6. Select the NIC that will communicate with the NetWorker server (in the following example, client > server communication is on the net 151.87.35.x, check /etc/hosts definition for NetWorker server to validate on which network work will occur): 

7. Insert hostname, DNS domain, and IP address. If the hosts file was used, DO NOT modify the DNS section:  

8. A list of all machine disk is provided, click Next:  

9. Click on Search. Backup server name appears. Select it and verify that the client session is properly inserted:  

10. A list of restore points appears, select the one desired:  

11. Save set view lists all critical volumes in the disaster_recovery backup (NB: Only critical volumes will be listed, not all the machine s disks).

12. Review the restore summary and select restore when ready:   

13.  Restore progresses are displayed:  

14. At the end of the restore, review the logs and then reboot.