Forum Discussion

Sublaner's avatar
Sublaner
Level 4
10 years ago

AVVI Restore of Differential Backup Restores ONLY Differential Data

Hello, I use BE2010 R3 in a Win 2k8 VMware 4.0 VM to back up similar VMs using the AVVI through the VCenter. Backup policies perform weekly full and daily differential backups of all VMs, one job ...
Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Restore
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • Sublaner's avatar
    Sublaner
    10 years ago

    The problem I saw with HF 212812 (https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH212812.html) is that

    1. Restore of VM from the Differential backup restores only the Differential data, but restore still reports "successful".

    2. After this has been tried once, a second attempt still reports successful but even LESS data is restored - apparently only one "shell" vmdk for me.

    3. WORST OF ALL, running a restore of the Diff seems to "poison" the WF: once you have tried to restore from the Differential, its parent Weekly Full backup also becomes unusable for full VM restore, restoring "shell" data as in (2) above.

    Normal file/folder restores from the Diffs still work.

    The "Resolved issue" that I installed HF 212812 for was: "Backup Exec 2010 R3: AVVI restore from an incremental backup set of a virtual machine fails with error - Failed to mount one or more virtual disk images (TECH201706)". The failure was better.

    My testing is done. I believe this hotfix is defective, and we will not deploy it.

Sublaner's avatar
Sublaner
Level 4
10 years ago

Thanks Colin, the storage is permanent - virutal disks attached to the Backup Server VM.

The "diff restore to empty snapshot" explanation clears up one puzzle: browing the datastore after the first attempt I found three "appropriately sized" vmdks but not all the supporting files.

More detail: I ran one full backup after the Differential I tested with. Before restoring I shut down the VM, renamed it, deleted it from inventory, and moving the 'failed' VM folder to another data store. I don't know what else I could do to gve BE a clean slate to restore to.

Does the differential look to the "last" full backup even if it occurs later, by any chance? We have always thought not...

Thanks also for the warning about upgrading. We are planning to patch a number of systems to ESX 4.1 to extend their life for a a couple years, and upgrade Backup Exec at the same time. BE 2015 is 'newest' so I will check compatability for BE 2014.