Thursday, 24 September 2015 00:00

VMware Data Recovery step-by-step for newbie’s

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VMware Data Recovery works with entire virtual machines, backing them up and restoring them in their entirety. These backup and restore operations are conducted using a backup appliance which stores the virtual machines to a location called the deduplication store. The virtual machines that are backed up are stored in a form that can be read by solutions such as Data Recovery, but the contents of these virtual machine backups are not otherwise easily readable. For example, the contents of the virtual machine backups in the deduplication store are not readable by users browsing through files using their operating system. There is no convenient mount point that can be used by operating systems like Windows to read the contents of these backups. Users may want to restore a previous version of a single file. Perhaps the file has been deleted or information from a previous version is required. In such a case, users can restore an entire previous version of the virtual machine that contained the file, but this may be cumbersome. Rolling back to previous versions may overwrite the existing virtual machine and even if the restored virtual machine is restored to an alternate location, the process may not be as fast as customers want. FLR addresses these issues by providing a way to access individual files within a restore point. With this access, you can choose to read copies of the files or restore them from within restore points to any other available location. For example, you could create two copies of the file in question to compare them, or you could overwrite an existing file with an older version contained within the restore point, thereby reverting to a previous version. Note that accessing these files only provides a way to read their contents. You cannot write to files that are made available in restore points through FLR.

Using FLR

vcdrfilerestore -a ‹VCDR ip⁄dns› [-l] [-v]
usage: VMware Data Recovery File Restore Client ‹Options›

--help -h Display usage instructions and version
--address -a ‹VCDR ip⁄dns› IP/DNS of VCDR applianceOptional
--verbose -v Enable verbose logging
--latest -l Mount most recent restore point

After creating multiple back-ups I couldn’t get it to work:

C:\Users\Eric Sloof\Desktop\FileRestore>vdrFileRestore.exe -a -v 192.168.178.118

Failed to acquire service manager, error: 5
plugin path is... "disklibpluginvcdr"
Searching for valid restore points from: "/SCSI-0:1/"...
"DC.NTPRO.LOCAL.vmdk"(size: 10240MB)
"DC.NTPRO.LOCAL_1.vmdk"(size: 5120MB)
Searching for valid restore points from: "/192.168.178.80/public/"...

No restore points found for this virtual machine FileLevelRestore::Go: std::exception occurred, exiting:Unknown exception

The error is fixed :-)

Reference: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1292-File-Level-Restore-with-VMware-Data-Recovery-1.0.html

Last modified on Thursday, 24 September 2015 10:25
Data Recovery Expert

Viktor S., Ph.D. (Electrical/Computer Engineering), was hired by DataRecoup, the international data recovery corporation, in 2012. Promoted to Engineering Senior Manager in 2010 and then to his current position, as C.I.O. of DataRecoup, in 2014. Responsible for the management of critical, high-priority RAID data recovery cases and the application of his expert, comprehensive knowledge in database data retrieval. He is also responsible for planning and implementing SEO/SEM and other internet-based marketing strategies. Currently, Viktor S., Ph.D., is focusing on the further development and expansion of DataRecoup’s major internet marketing campaign for their already successful proprietary software application “Data Recovery for Windows” (an application which he developed).

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