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SYM-AJ's avatar
SYM-AJ
Level 5
8 years ago

Mounting a VMDK from a restored backup taken with Backup Exec 2010R3

I have a requirement to restore individual files/folders from 'historical' backups taken with Backup Exec 2010R3 in years gone by.

The current situation is as follows:

W2K16 installed on server, BEX16 installed, tape library attached.  All functioning OK.

Old tapes inserted, inventoried and catalogued - all OK.

Data restored from an old VCB VMWare backup taken with BEX2010R3 and placed on a local disk - all OK.

However - this is the point that made me remember back to the VCB backup days of old.  The backups were taken with the options set which created a 'multi-part' backup of the VMDK - with each part being a maximum of 2GB.  Therefore I have (for example) a 32GB (approx) VMDK which consists of the following:

scsi0-1-0-server_name.vmdk  (2KB)  I assume this is a 'control' file

scsi0-1-0-server_name-s001.vmdk (2GB)

scsi0-1-0-server_name-s002.vmdk (2GB)

etc etc thru

scsi0-1-0-server_name-s016.vmdk (13,376KB)

I am looking for a way to mount this VMDK on the windows server in order to copy files/folders from it to another location.

We don't have the option to restore the full VM machine into an ESX server / vCenter Server, and don't want to take this approach anyhow.

With a 'one-part' VMDK I usually use OSFMount utility which works a dream.  Simply mounts the VMDK as a drive letter in windows and you can access it as if it were a local disk.  However - this doesn't appear to function with a 'multi-part' VMDK as above.  I have pointed it at the 'control' file and it see's a partition but fails to mount.  I am guessing it is not aware of the 'multi-part' VMDK.

We have previously used (and can still do so on an old W2K3 server) the MOUNTVM.EXE utility (part of the VCB Consolidated Backup feature) - but this is simply hanging on the W2K16 server.  As it is no longer supported there is no option to get any support from VMWare.

Where do I go from here ?  Any suggestions ?

AJ.

16
Windows Server 2016

17 Replies

    • SYM-AJ's avatar
      SYM-AJ
      Level 5
      8 years ago

      I downloaded the VDDK but see no vmware-mount comand.  I have since downloaded the vmware-mount utility and will install and try that now.

      Thx,

      AJ

      • SYM-AJ's avatar
        SYM-AJ
        Level 5
        8 years ago

        No joy with the vmware-mount command / utility.

        I have restored the data to the local S: drive on my BEX16 server and am then issuing the following command (server-name substituted from the 'real' server name).  I don't have a J: drive on the BEX16 server.

        C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware DiskMount Utility>vmware-mount J: "S:\Restore\server-name\scsi0-1-0-servername_1.vmdk"
        Unable to mount the virtual disk. The disk may be in use by a virtual machine or mounted under another drive letter. If not, verify that the disk is a virtual disk file, and that the disk file has not been corrupted.

        This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
        Please contact the application's support team for more information.

        Any more thoughts ?

        AJ.

    • SYM-AJ's avatar
      SYM-AJ
      Level 5
      8 years ago

      Thanks for the input but we have no connectivity to an ESX platform, and we want to avoid restoring a VM - we just want individual file / folder restore from the VMDK's.

      AJ

      • Colin_Weaver's avatar
        Colin_Weaver
        Moderator
        8 years ago

        OK so as you can get at the drive in a command prompt - can't you copy it to a drive letter that can be seen in Explorer so you can then see the data in a way that can be more easily manipulated

         

        If you use xcopy (or similar command) you can copy a complete file and folder