Backup Exec True Image Restore clarification

[mk128935]

Hi, I've been looking at past posts regarding True Image Restore for Backup Exec and I'm a little confused so I'd appreciate the clarification. Let's say you've been taking a weekly full and daily incrementals and you want to restore, say to the state of your most recent incremental (ex. Wednesday) but you don't want to restore any deleted folders or files from the past (just like restoring from a recent image backup like System Recovery). I believe True Image Restore will allow you to do this (you'll need the Enterprise Server Option with ADBO enabled). I've read the Admin Guide and it seems like it's saying that you need to run a synthetic backup but in past posts regarding this subject, some people say you don't need to run a synthetic backup. Which is true? If you can run TIR without a syntheic backup how do you enable this on a backup job already defined? I tried a restore from a recent incremental but I don't see any specific setting for TIR. I appreciate any feedback, experience regarding this matter. Thanks. 

[pkh · Accepted solution]

You don't need to do a synthetic backup before doing a restore. All you need is to make sure that your backups are True Image Backups. The backup method you need to use contains the word "catalog". (I can't remember the exact wording of the method.) You cannot convert your existing backups to True Image. You would have to start afresh. When you restore from a True Image backup, it will combine the previous backups in the backup chain so that deleted items are not restored.