Forum Discussion

arun0700's avatar
arun0700
Level 3
5 months ago

Unable to perform file restore on bitlocker encrypted VM's

Hello everyone, I have a few windows VMware virtual machines which have bitlocker enabled for all drives. These machines are backed up using "VMWare" policy type. When i try to perform a file level ...
  • quebek's avatar
    quebek
    5 months ago

    hey

    I am thinking out loud...

    From the TN you did provice, I can see this:

    Solution

    For file system backups, NetBackup does support the use of Microsoft BitLocker.

    Which means the MS-Windows based backup should have been able to restore a single file, for VMWARE based ones I think not.

    Maybe you can do instant access/recovery of this VM? once booted you can login pull out needed file?

    VMWARE based backup is image based level backup and as such NBU cant see the files as these are encrypted with bitlocker

davidmoline's avatar
davidmoline
Level 6

HI arun0700 

Bitlocker shouldn't make a difference for the restore as that should be transparent to NetBackup. I assume that you have a NetBackup client installed in the VM you are testing - as the client is required to perform a single file restore (in general - there are methods to recover without the client installed which are described in the VMware guide). 

Given the error you describe, I suspect you may be choosing the wrong backup type in the restore GUI. The type needs to be selected a VMware (and not Windows). Try that, then make sure that the date range you search covers the backup. 

Cheers
David

 

quebek's avatar
quebek
Moderator
5 months ago

hey

I am thinking out loud...

From the TN you did provice, I can see this:

Solution

For file system backups, NetBackup does support the use of Microsoft BitLocker.

Which means the MS-Windows based backup should have been able to restore a single file, for VMWARE based ones I think not.

Maybe you can do instant access/recovery of this VM? once booted you can login pull out needed file?

VMWARE based backup is image based level backup and as such NBU cant see the files as these are encrypted with bitlocker

  • arun0700's avatar
    arun0700
    Level 3
    5 months ago
    Hi quebek,

    I did test this and I can confirm that VMware policy type based backup does not support file level recovery with Bitlocker on. File backups with Bitlocker on works though and lets us restore files and folders.

    davidmoline I did choose VMware policy type while trying to perform file level restore with Bitlocker on and it failed.

    Thanks everyone for your valuable feedbacks!