How to manually restore from VBK?

[Pegasus05]

Hi everyone!

I'm in a rescue restore situation where our client destroyed her drive C: by "accidently" combining it with other drives and turning into a dynamic volume. She was trying to format an external drive and pressed all the wrong buttons in Drive Management. Don't ask.
Luckily Veeam Agent for Windows Free was installed on that machine and made backups to an external USB harddrive.

But now these backups won't restore. Veeam's Rescue Stick refused to see any backups on the USB drive. Veeam Agent's "Extract" method on another computer showed "No valid restore points".

I've used the Veeam Extract utility (Source: https://download2.veeam.com/VBR/v11/Vee ... 1.1261.zip) to extract the VBK file and got 3 files:

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16.09.2022  13:41             4.792 digest_59263cc4-a97e-4c02-98bd-5328100b8b09
16.09.2022  16:57        15.515.144 digest_62e666cd-0d70-4256-bc32-3cd5aeeb34be
16.09.2022  16:57   512.109.158.912 fc2ac138-ff28-4fe7-82d4-65b60be23f43

How do I restore these images or extract files from it? Am I even on the right track?

I've opened Case-Nr.05636972 — How to Mount Image from VBK?

Thx for reading this far!
Alex

[Dima P.]

Hello Alexander,

Any chance that the USB drive with the backup was somehow affected by this accident? On a first place try to install Veeam Agent for Windows on any other computer, connect the USB drive with the backup, go to Start menu and find Veeam > File Level Recovery. In the wizard browse for a backup file stored on the USB drive and try to start a restore. That should open a file level recovery, but it's needed to make sure that backup is operational.

Veeam Extract utility does not support backup files made with agents, but it's not required right now anyway.

[vmtech123]

I was going to ask, was the USB drive plugged in while she pressed "all the wrong buttons in Disk Management?

[Pegasus05]

Thank you for your quick replies.

Yes, the USB drive was plugged in at the time but it seems to be unaffected. When I connect it to another computer I can see VBK and VIB files.

"File Level Restore" showed "No backup files found on local or external disks, (...)", even after manually selecting the VBM file.

But after looking further into that drive the file structure for the backup chain is wrong. The VBM and VBK files are in directory A and some VIB files are in directory B. I can only assume someone didn't trust Veeam Agent and moved some of the files in the chain around to protect the chain, while truly making things worse.

I've recombined the files in one directory, which the VBM file indicates with its "FilePath" value. But "File Level Restore" still finds no backup points.

The directory looks now like this:

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22.09.2022  00:03            28.265 Job PC2013.vbm
10.06.2022  13:39   320.327.692.288 Job PC20132022-02-24T075221.vbk
14.03.2022  12:54    40.566.042.624 Job PC20132022-03-14T113639.vib
14.03.2022  18:05    10.023.759.872 Job PC20132022-03-14T170010.vib
15.03.2022  16:30     3.889.295.360 Job PC20132022-03-15T152810.vib
02.04.2022  18:09    30.911.111.168 Job PC20132022-04-02T175604.vib
07.04.2022  14:50    15.332.425.728 Job PC20132022-04-07T144228.vib
27.05.2022  15:27    54.517.387.264 Job PC20132022-05-27T150345.vib
27.05.2022  17:04     6.079.918.080 Job PC20132022-05-27T170051.vib
28.05.2022  17:04     5.853.880.320 Job PC20132022-05-28T170051.vib
10.06.2022  13:29    36.157.005.824 Job PC20132022-06-10T131302.vib
13.06.2022  12:14    98.244.386.816 Job PC20132022-06-13T112612.vbk

The VBM looks strange too. It contains no VIB files and only the last VBK file - which is considerably shorter (98 GB) than the VBK made on 10.06.2022 (320 GB). I think moving around those files prior to starting the last backup had the contents of the original VBM file overwritten.

Is the VBM critically needed for recovery? And if so, how do I recreate this file?

[Dima P.]

Alexander,

But after looking further into that drive the file structure for the backup chain is wrong. The VBM and VBK files are in directory A and some VIB files are in directory B. I can only assume someone didn't trust Veeam Agent and moved some of the files in the chain around to protect the chain, while truly making things worse.

Unfortunately it works the opposite way making the backup chain inconsistent. Backup files from one backup chain should be stored / moved together otherwise you loose the backup chain integrity.

Is the VBM critically needed for recovery?

For Veeam agent, yes metadata file is required. However there is a workaround: downloads and install Veeam Community Edition , import the vbk file to the B&R server and it should be possible to restore files from such full backup if it's operational.