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Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2
You can recover your server operating system or full server by
using Windows Recovery Environment and a backup that youcreated
earlier with Windows Server Backup.
You can access the recovery and troubleshooting tools in Windows
Recovery Environment through the System RecoveryOptions dialog box
in the Install Windows Wizard. In Windows Server 2008 R2, to launch
this wizard, use the Windows Setupdisc or start/restart the
computer, press F8, and then select Repair Your Computer from the
list of startup options.
To recover your operating system, you need to perform a bare
metal recovery and choose the options so that only the data
oncritical volumes (volumes that contain operating system files)
are restored.
When you perform a recovery of the operating system or full
server, you will need to specify the following:
What backup you will use Whether you will perform an operating
systemonly or full server recovery Whether you will reformat and
repartition your disks
Important
In a full server recovery, if you choose to reformat and
repartition all disks, the existing data will be deleted. This
includes anyvolumes that are currently used by the server but were
not included in the backup. This option is not available if you
accessWindows Recovery Environment by pressing F8 instead of by
using a Windows Setup disc.
To recover the operating system or a full server, you should
first do the following:
If you are recovering to a new hard disk, make sure the disk is
at least as big as the disk that contained the volumes thatwere
backed up, regardless of the size of those volumes. For example, if
there was only one volume that was 100 GBon a 1-TB disk during
backup, you should use a disk that is at least 1 TB when
restoring.
If you are recovering just the operating system, make sure that
you have a backup available that contains at least thecritical
volumes of the server. If you are recovering the full server, make
sure that you have a backup available thatcontains all volumes of
the server. To perform a bare metal recovery, make sure you have a
backup enabled for bare
metal recovery (or full server recovery). For instructions to
create backups, seePerforming a Manual BackupandConfiguring
Automatic Backups.
To recover your operating system or full server using a backup
created earlier and Windows Setup disc
1. Insert the Windows Setup disc that has the same architecture
of the system that you are trying to recover into the CD orDVD
drive and start or restart the computer. If needed, press the
required key to boot from the disc. The InstallWindows Wizard
should appear.
2. In Install Windows, specify language settings, and then
clickNext.3. ClickRepair your computer.4. Setup searches the hard
disk drives for an existing Windows installation and then displays
the results in System
Recovery Options. If you are recovering the operating system
onto separate hardware, the list should be empty (there
should be no operating system on the computer). ClickNext.5. On
the System Recovery Options page, clickSystem Image Recovery. This
opens the Re-image your computer
page.6. Do one of the following, and then clickNext:
o ClickUse the latest available system image (recommended).o
ClickRestore a different backup, and then do one of the
following:
On the Select the location of the system image page, click the
computer that contains the backup that you want to use, and
then
clickNext.
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Important
If the storage location contains backups of multiple computers,
make sure that you click the row for the backups for the
computerthat you want to use.
Then, on the Select the system image to restore page, click the
backup that you want to use, and then clickNext.
ClickAdvanced to browse for a backup in a remote shared folder
on the network and provide the Universal Naming Convention(UNC)
path to the backup, or if your backup is on a device, to install a
device driver. (To install a drive, the driver needs to be
present in local system. You cannot install a driver from the
network and, instead, need to provide a local path to the .inf file
to
install a driver.) ClickNext.
7. On the Choose additional restore options page, do the
following optional tasks, and then clickNext:o Select the Format
and repartition disks check box to delete existing partitions and
reformat the destination
disks to be the same as the backup. This enables the Exclude
disks button. Click this button and then select
the check boxes associated with any disks that you want to
exclude from being formatted and partitioned. Thedisk that contains
the backup that you are using is automatically excluded.
Note
Unless a disk is excluded, data on it can be lostregardless of
whether it was part of the backup or whether it hasvolumes that are
being restored.
You should not exclude the boot diskthe first disk in the BIOS
boot order. (This disk is usually referred to as Disk 0,but in some
conditions, Diskmgmt.msc and Diskpart.exe may label it as something
else, for example, Disk 1/2.) If the
boot disk (Disk 0) is excluded then Windows will try to do
recovery on BIOS Disk 1. But after the recovery, thesystem will not
start and it may fail with an error that Bootmgr is missing. The
BIOS will always use the first disk inthe boot order to search for
this file and if it is missing the computer will not start.
In Exclude disks, if you do not see all the disks that are
attached to the computer, you might need to install theassociated
drivers for the storage device.
o Select the Only restore system drives check box to perform an
operating systemonly recovery.o ClickInstall drivers to install
device drivers for the hardware that you are recovering to.o
ClickAdvanced to specify whether the computer is automatically
restarted and the disks are checked for
errors immediately after the recovery.
8. Confirm the details for the restoration, and then
clickFinish. The recovery will succeed as long as all the
criticalvolumes (volumes containing operating system components)
are recovered. If any data volume cannot be recoveredthen Windows
will show a prompt with unrecovered volumes at the end of the
recovery operation (for example,volumes on virtual hard disks and
Internet SCSI (iSCSI) disks).
Important
If you use a domain in your environment, and if the backup
storage location is on a computer that is a member of that
domain,
then computer containing the storage location should be on the
IPsec boundary to be accessible by non-domain computers. Whena
computer boots into Windows Recovery Environment, it becomes a
non-domain computer and cannot access the usual networkshares. Only
those computers that allow non-domain computers to access the share
can be used as a backup storage location inthis way.
You can also address this issue by adding the computer that is
your backup storage location to a workgroup and placing thebackup
in a shared folder. A computer running Windows Recovery Environment
behaves as if it is in a workgroup, enabling youto access the
shared folder with the backup.
