Restore from snapshot using VSC 2

[darren_hedges]

Hi,

Have got backups running great using vsc 2 and am using a daily and weekly backup with 'x' amount of backups kept.

I am having problems restoring though.

The backups I do include all luns except the lun with the pagefile and vswap file on.

For testing I did a 'delete from disk' on a test vm.

When I come to restore, it only gives me the option to restore specific virtual disks instead of the entire virtual machine.

It starts restoring ok and creates a temporary lun which if I browse into it using datastore browser I can see all the files im interested in but then part way through the datastore goes inactive and is grayed out and then we get a lost connectivity to storage device and lost access to volume error and the restore fails.

When everything is over and done, all we have is the 2 virtual disks although they are only a few bytes in size which is wrong but then no other files at all.

Any suggestions as have tried it numerous times now and always the same unsuccessful restore.

[amritad]

Hi Darren,

You should see 2 options while restoring

1) Restore and restart entire VM

2) Restore just the VMDK’s

Are you saying that you do not see option1 at all in the UI?

Regards

Amrita

[amritad]

Hi

Here's the screenshot.

Regards

Amrita

[darren_hedges]

Hi,

I can see the option for 'The entire virtual machine' but it is greyed out.

Regards

Darren

[amritad]

Hi

Is the VM created on an RDM LUN by any chance?

Regards

Amrita

[darren_hedges]

Hi,

No we are not using any RDM at all, just the normal vmfs luns.

Regards

Darren

[#7]

Darren,

  If you exclude non independent disks from backup, full VM restore will be disabled.

  This is because Vmware snapshots have those disks and snapshot revert needs those disks.

  You can mark page files "independent" using VI client.

   Excluding independent disks are fine and full VM restore will be enabled.

regards,

Antony

[darren_hedges]

Hi thanks for the info there.

Have done some tests to see how it works and it works but not as good as I had hoped.

My test was as follows:

pagefiles on vm's are configured as independent disks and persistent

include datastores with independent disks left unticked

only datastore luns not containing independent disks selected ie not pagefile luns

no spanned datastores advised so nothing to select or disable there

c:\ = os

d:\ = apps

e:\ = pagefile

result = no snapshot of pagefile volumes, can do a restore BUT and this could be annoying, the missing 3rd hard drive (e:\) ends up referencing the c:\ drive vmdk file

This can catch you out if not careful as if you delete the drive and select delete files from disk, you will lose your c:\ partition.

My process for restoring now is do a full restore and wait for it to finish.

Remove the snapshot info.

Remove the pagefile drive and add it back in.

Go into windows and into the virtual settings and reapply the pagefile sizes and reboot.

Shut down image (not needed if got storage vmotion)

Migrate image onto different datastore and select thin provisioning

Move back to correct datastore ensurign it keeps the thin provisioning.

Reason for this is when the image is restored back, it restores it as a thick disk instead of thin disk.  This is a pain as it takes a long time to restore.

Looking at the vmfs datastores, i can happily see that no snapshots exist in them luns.

I mistakenly clicked helped instead of answered, sorry about that