Restore to new computer: Bare Metal or Volumes only?

[Cangoou]

Hello!

I want to restore a backup from Windos 10 on a new computer. The old computer has some partitions with data (C:, D:, E:, F: and so on) as well as 2 system partitions ("EFI" with 260 MB and "Recovery" with 1000 MB). The backup was done with "entire computer", meaning the backup contains the "EFI"- and "Recovery"-partition as well.

In the help-center, the document (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=50) says that in this case you should restore the entire computer. But I'm afraid that the new computer has different data on the "EFI"- and "Recovery"-partition than the old one. So could I do a "Volumes only"-restore on a new hardware or is it save to overwrite the "EFI" and "Recovery"-Partition?

[chris.childerhose]

If you are not worried about the new computer current partitions I would suggest restoring the entire computer as Veeam will create the required partitions during the restore process to place everything back as it is in the backup. I find if you are moving to new hardware the easiest way is entire restore as getting in to volumes can be messy and sometimes not work correctly.

[Dima P.]

Hello Martin,

EFI is a system bootloader, if you are restoring Operating System from the backup you need those partitions to be restored. Entire computer restore is the way to go, as Chris suggested. Thanks!

[Cangoou]

Thanks for your replys!

I tried to restore the "entire computer", but Veeam wasn't able to "automatically match the partitions". I was assuming that when restoring the entire computer Veeam would just remove all existing partitions (as the new harddisc is the same size as the old one) and recreate the partitions as they are stored in the backup. I was then going for a manual restore, manually removing all existing partitions and assigning the partitions in the backup to the then empty space. But in the end, this all worked fine, so thanks for your help!

[Dima P.]

I tried to restore the "entire computer", but Veeam wasn't able to "automatically match the partitions".

Yup, that's a safety blocker whenever we detect volumes on a new drive for restore (does not happen with empty drives or original drives with the same layout)

I was then going for a manual restore, manually removing all existing partitions and assigning the partitions in the backup to the then empty space. But in the end, this all worked fine, so thanks for your help!

Glad you nailed it and thank you for sharing the update!