Another New Windows User, advise on DR

[Soda]

Hi,

 

I am just getting to grips with Retrospect on windows after many years on Mac. The day to day folder specific backups are working fine.

Can I use retrospect to backup my entire boot disk including the hidden partitions(EFI, MSR and recovery) to restore/roll back my entire OS? I don't see these partitions when I select the local drive? Is it just done anyway or not needed?

 

Please excuse me if anything seems stupid, I am new to windows.

 

Thanks!

[mbennett]

Click Backup | Disaster Recovery.  This will probably require that you download and install a huge free library of Microsoft utilities before you can continue.

 

There's documentation in the manual.  Try it and get back in touch if you have problems.

 

I think there is also a Youtube video on this which will help explain.

 

Good luck

[Soda]

Thank you.

So are the efi, msr and recovery partitions generic? As long as you have a backup of all the local files you can restore to even a different HD, the system partitions will get created and you're ready to go? I'm asking as for the moment I have been using some cloning software that seems to backup even those partitions.

[DavidHertzberg]

For a start, you can read Chapter 9 "Disaster Recovery" on pages 329-350 of the Retrospect Windows 12 User's Guide.

 

There are now 3 Disaster Recovery video Tutorials.  I think the one you probably want is this one, entitled "Prepare for Disaster Recovery—Flash Media".  However, if you are old school, you may want this one, entitled "Using the Disaster Recovery Boot CD".  If you are positively archaic, you may want this one, entitled "Disaster Recovery Preparation in Retrospect 8 for Windows"—which may correspond to what's in the UG.

[Don Lee]

I can't quite get a complete answer to how - exactly - Retrospect restores the hidden "boot" partition on the restored disk, nor what I have to do to properly prepare the disk for that restoration.

 

I gather that I simply add a "C:" volume to the disk, and Retro auto-magically creates the boot volume and its contents, though no explicit option or action causes it. It is apparently a side-effect of choosing " entire volume" for restoration.

 

It also appears that it does not matter if the Retro server is Mac or Windows, the restore does the same thing and works.

 

I am trying this theory out. THere is no substitute for testing. ;->  I would love to get some confirmation, though.

 

Thanks,

[Don Lee]

That reminds me - I've seen nothing in the DR documentation on how the partitioning is done. Is there machinery to let me choose EFI or MBR partitioning? MBR is essential for the oldest systems, while the newer is essential for newer ones - especially big volumes.

[Soda]

Hi,

 

It seems that when you boot with the retrospect recovery drive you created in retrospect you get the option to 'setup your hard drive before restoring' and the partitioning option makes it self available there.

 

As to the partitioning scheme, it looks like it will auto magically create it as it was. The recovery partition mentioned below gets created by windows (at least in 10, I cant speak for anything earlier.  )

 

"If the drive that are restoring had a hidden Recovery Partition, the Retrospect Emergency Recovery process will recreate the exact partitioning scheme that was present when the backup being restored was originally created. This process will destroy all data present on the drive."

[Soda]

iCompute, I just got this from a Retrospect agent. Looks like it does everything for you.

 

"If you select in Source "My Computer" Retrospect will backup all partitions available in the computer disk, so it will be then possible to restore all, in case of crash disk, using Disaster Recovery.

Make  sure  Open files backup is selected in preferences"

[Don Lee]

Cool.

 

I did an experiment - a restore of a complete volume does indeed restore a bootable volume. I can do this from both the windows and Mac retro server.

 

I still don't have much information on HOW Retro does this. Does it back up the "secret" partitions only if you choose "computer" when backing up? My experiment was only backing up the C: volume, and it still boots. (I didn't check for partitioning, only boot)

 

Open files option? The backup I did to restore the bootable volume was done by a Mac server that does *not* have the "open file" feature. Will that fail sometimes without that feature? (that would be a real surprise - bare-metal restore without "open file" feature fails(!))

 

The idea that the partitioning should be done "manually" by me before doing the restore makes little sense. If the "secret" partition is saved by Retro, only Retro knows how big it is, and what needs to be in it. What I have seen is that if I partition the disk myself, Retro will honor my partitioning. How do I size the partition, and select a partition type if I know nothing about it?

 

I have more questions about this, but at least I have demonstrated one path to making it work.

 

Thanks for posting.

[Soda]

Thanks for that!!

As for the hidden partitions, after many re installs(getting used to windows again) I feel comfortable that the windows installer prompts you and then creates the additional partitions needed for a boot volume. At least it did for my ssd which I removed all the partitions from.