Problems restoring files from VM under BE2012

[RpR]

I've successfully upgraded our BE2012 R3 setup to 2012, and backups are running fine. Restore on SOME servers is however not working correctly!

You simply can't click the restore button when the server is selected. I can enter our vCenter server and select to restore the entire VM, but not the individual files.

What I've noticed is that the servers that I can't restore from, are showing up as physical servers, instead of virtual, please see attached screenshot.

[CraigV]

Hi,

Were you able to restore the individual files in BE 2010 R3? If not, then the RAWS agent isn't installed which is a prerequisite for this...

THanks!

[RpR]

Hi Craig!

Yup worked just fine under BE2010 (we did however have problems with Incremental VMDK's from tape, but this was resolved in BE2012 according to a technote, main reason we upgraded really)

[Jason_von_Ebers]

In order to do a file GRT restore you must 1st select the VM by the netbios name in resouce list rather than the vCenter . From there you should see all you file level data. 

-Jason

[RpR]

Is this when backing up or restoring? 

Wont it do an "old fashioned" backup when selecting via the netbios name?

And if this was the case, WHY does it work just fine by doing the selections from the vCenter server for about 50-60% of our virtual servers?

[RpR]

Bump, issue is still not resolved

[pkh]

You do the backup by selecting the VM under vCentre, but you select the netbios name when you you want to restore some files.  Don't select the server under vCentre when you are trying to restore just some files.

[RpR]

Yes, that is the procedure I'm doing when I try to restore. This works for ~50% of the servers, the others will show no backups at all if selected that way, notice the greyed out "restore" button on attached screenshot.

[pkh]

This is because the server was never backed up.  You should either backup the server or resolve the problem why it was not backed up.  Without a backup, you cannot restore anything.

[RpR]

It HAS been backed up, that's the problem!

ALL servers have been backed up using the VMWare agent through vCenter, but only about 50% of them actually show up as backed up from the "server view".

If I click the vCenter server I can chose to restore the VM's in entirety, but individual files are not possible!

[CraigV]

...and just to clarify, you updated the RAWS agent on those servers in question after you upgraded to BE 2012 right?

[RpR]

Yup, only thing I haven't tried is uninstalling the agent and reinstalling it, I'll give that a go right away, do a full backup and see what's what. Thanks for your fast replies!

[RpR · Accepted solution]

Alright, I got the solution:

For some reason, some of the servers needed to be added using the FQDN instead of NetBIOS, after I've removed the servers and manually readded them using FQDN, they show up and I can restore.

Anyone know why I need to put the FQDN instead of NetBIOS on some servers? Misconfiguration somewhere obviously, but where to look?