Recovery Media

[minxminx]

Hi,
If I have bunch of windows VMs (all of them are W2012R2), do I need to create multiple recovery media from each server or 1 is enough?
Thanks

[Dima P.]

One is enough for a computer with the same OS (and same capacity). Just make sure you have a vendors media with all the drivers close to Veeam RE.

[rawtaz]

Is this documented anywhere? I mean the support for creating just one recovery media and be able to use it on other computers as well.

It appears from the answer to the initial post in this thread that it is possible to create just one recovery media, and then use it to restore other computers as well.

But the answer at the same time states that "same OS" and "same capacity" must be adhered to. What does this mean in practice, what actual concrete limitations are there?

This really need documenting, if there isn't documentation for it yet, because I'm pretty sure a lot of users would like to not create one recovery media for every computer they're backing up.

[Dima P.]

rawtaz,

Recovery Media is created from Operating System components, so if you have multiple machines running Windows 10, single recovery media image will work for all of them. As for hardware drivers - Recovery Media can automatically collects storage and network drivers but you can load those drivers to RE when it's booted.

Can you please clarify your concern about capacity? RE is around 700MB size and can grow bigger only if you manually inject lots of drivers.

Recovery Media creation process is described here.

[asdffdsa6131]

when it comes to recovery, it is good to be paranoid.
it takes just a few minutes to create recovery media.
you can create them at the same time.
so it would not take more then 15 minutes to create all of them.

sure, in your case, all servers are the same os and running in the same virtual machine, in terms of drivers.

you do not want to have to recovery from a major disaster to found out you cannot recover your vm.
people get fired when they cannot recover a server!

[rawtaz]

Dima; Thanks for your reply. But why would you need a Windows 10 recovery media to restore a backup of Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2019?

The recovery media's purpose is to fire up a temporary operating system that can be used to restore the stuff. So if you restore an entire system image (volumes, not file level restore) from the backup repo onto the harddrives of the new system, why would there be a need for matching OSs? I mean, if all you do is shuffle some bytes off the repo and onto the target disks, what difference does it make if the bytes belong to a Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2019, as well as what version of Windows you used to create the recovery media. As long as the recovery media is able to run on the hardware where you run it, I fail to see why it has anything to do with the restore (as long as it's the entire system you restore).

Regarding capacity, the first answer read "One is enough for a computer with the same OS (and same capacity)". It sounds as if the computer where the recovery media is created, and the (other) computer(s) where you intend to run the recovery media, has to be of the same capacity. This is what's unclear. If you are talking about the capacity of the *recovery media*, that's of course another (non-issue).

[Dima P.]

The recovery media's purpose is to fire up a temporary operating system that can be used to restore the stuff. So if you restore an entire system image (volumes, not file level restore) from the backup repo onto the harddrives of the new system, why would there be a need for matching OSs?

I'd call it temporary operating system which was build from existing operating system components. You need you hardware to work properly with such temporary operating system, thus you must have a drivers that match your temporary operating system version.

Regarding capacity, the first answer read "One is enough for a computer with the same OS (and same capacity)". It sounds as if the computer where the recovery media is created, and the (other) computer(s) where you intend to run the recovery media, has to be of the same capacity. This is what's unclear.

Missed context, sorry. Capacity should match as well.

[rawtaz]

I'd call it temporary operating system which was build from existing operating system components. You need you hardware to work properly with such temporary operating system, thus you must have a drivers that match your temporary operating system version.

Yeah, this is known, of course we need to create the recovery media on/from an OS that will run on the hardware you want to restore stuff on. But this doesn't answer the actual question(s) at all, which remains.

Missed context, sorry. Capacity should match as well.

What capacity?

[Dima P.]

As an example:

Windows 10 x64 - you will need Recovery Media build from Windows 10 x64
Windows 10 x86 - you will need Recovery Media build from Windows 10 x86
Windows 8.1 x64 - you will need Recovery Media build from Windows 8.1 x64
Windows 8.1 x86 - you will need Recovery Media build from Windows 8.1 x86
Windows Server 2019 x64 - you will need Recovery Media build from Windows 2019 x64

[rawtaz]

Dima, please ask someone else to answer the questions I asked. Your answers are both unclear and you don't answer all of the questions. Please have someone else answer.

[Pwdoc]

Recovery Media created with the new release 4 using Windows 10 still does not work as mouse and keyboard freeze making it unusable. Works with Windows 7