question and/or enhancement request - GPT partition backup and restore

[dcm-ebb]

I am looking to restore a Veeam Enterprise virtual backup of Windows 2012 to just the primary partitions of GPT virtual disks in VMware. This is required because I did not know there was hidden MSR partition that causes some VSS writer operations to fail if it is missing https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/71130. The data drives all are GPT missing the MSR partitions from some previous restore for migration or DR.

I know I can accomplish the same thing by installing the latest Veeam Agent on my production SQL server. I am afraid this might cost one or more reboots in addition to the one required for the restore and this machine has the shortest available maintenance window even at the holidays.

These are the steps I would take with the Agent. Create the ISO recovery disk. Take active full backup. Attach the recovery disk to the VM. Boot from that disk. Restore to the newly created GPT disks with correct hidden MSR, but only the data partition. I have already tried this successfully with another one of our virtual servers.

Is there some trick to taking a backup with Veeam Enterprise that will allow me to do the restore in this manner? So far I have found I can restore over the entire VM or over the individual disk, but it replaces the disk not writes to the partition like the Agent Bare Metal Restore. If some sort of partition backup and restore option is not already in the Enterprise product, is it possible to add this so I don't have to separately use the agent? If this already exists, could someone point me to instructions?

Thank you!

[HannesK]

Hello,
Veeam (and other backup products) that back up VM-based back up virtual disks (usually all virtual disks of a VM). The backup always contains everything on a disk. Partitions inside a disk are irrelevant for VM-based backup.

Restore of VM-based backup is "per VM", "per disk" or "object based" (meaning files etc.). Partitions are not an option for restore (looking from the hypervisor perspective, partitions are invisible).

Is it correct, that you have issues with backup? If yes, which issues do you see and what kind of backup job configuration do you have? As you refer to VMware quiescing in the KB article: is Veeam application aware processing working for you (VMware quiescing is not recommended for stability reasons)?

Thanks,
Hannes