SBS 2008 bare metal restore restore on ESXi

The disk and partitions must be at least as large as they were when the backup was made. That partition size is what catches most people at first.

-Cliff

Thx for the reply Cliff.
Just to make sure I've understood correctly; if partition c was 250gb and the other 2 partitions was also 250gb each (750gb in total), BUT the actual data on al partitions is less than 50gb, I won't be able to restore the whole server on a virtual disk w/ 450gb?

Why can't I restore the system partition alone ( c drive which is 250gb) -  Getting the same error ??

Thx

That is correct. The partitions must be at least the same size. Even if you choose not to restore some drives, the backup image still has information about them, and concludes that you *could* try to restore them in the future. To prevent errors with the restore process, it ensures that the minimum requirements (drive and partition sizes) are already met.

-Cliff

I'm speechless. It's not the wisest idea..
Anyway, how can I mount the VHD and see the exact partitions size of the backup?

Thank you!

There isn't a way that I know of.

So we rely only on our good memory / documentation?

Btw, if the windows backup has backup only one partition, will it still be looking for ALL the other partitions which exists during the backup, or only for the one which has been backup?

Only the ones that were in the backup set. And yes, you rely on your documentation.  

Do you think that thin provisioning 3 big enough partitions in Esxi will workaround this issue?

I would think so, but I've never tried.

-Cliff

This issue is the same for all the Windows Backup editions (2008 STD , r2, sbs2011 etc)?

With all backups made since moving to an image- based backup (vista/2008 and beyond) yes.

-Cliff

Dear Cliff
We passed the initial problem, but now there's a new one:

Windows Complete Restore failed.
Error details: Element not found(0x80070490).

I've read alot of articles before posting here w/ this error.
The new Thin Provisioning disks were 1TB at first and after that 750 GB (exactly as the original size of the backup partitions).

Any ideas how to overcome this nightmerish restore procedure??

Thx

if you have less data (as you said about 60 GB) and having lot of issues with it then i can suggest a workaround here..
YOu can mount the VHD in windows (from disk part or diskmgmt) and then copy paste the data using xcopy. If it comes to boot drive there can be some issues but using robocopy it can be done correctly.

As you said , You do search so you can serach for how to attach a VHD in diskpart.

You will have to edit the Boot configuration as well..

Thx.
Is there a good easy guide hot to boot from VHD?

To attach the VHD ,you can either use diskpart or diskmanagement console .. Disk management GUI is much easy then diskpart.Go to Action=>Attach or create VHD.


TO boot from VHD you should edit the bcdedit with following commands...

bcdedit /store C:\Boot\BCD /copy {default} /d "Boot_FROM_VHD"

It will return a GUID ,Replace the GUID in below commands with the one retruned.

bcdedit /store C:\Boot\BCD /set {a5762099-0583-11e0-82ce-97b148f7caf8} device vhd=[C:]\VHDNAME.Vhd

bcdedit /store C:\Boot\BCD /set {a5762099-0583-11e0-82ce-97b148f7caf8} osdevice vhd=[C:]\vhdname.vhd

bcdedit /store C:\Boot\BCD /set {a5762099-0583-11e0-82ce-97b148f7caf8} detecthal on

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Do let us know incase you have questions..

Any news ?

Many Thx