The entry in the "Tasks" section of the Admin console is administrative in nature. It just points out major milestones for a restore process. It is not a requirement for a BMR restore of a Windows client. It is however used for the "Automated Restore" actions available to Windows restores. Also, the information in the "Tasks" section comes from the BMRDB on the Master Server, not the Boot Server. The Boot Server has no knowledge of the state of a restore as shown in the "Tasks" section. Also be aware that a Prepare To Restore for a Windows client is not a complete requriement for recovering any client. It is only needed if a network boot is being used and/or the SRT needs to have device driver updates performed to the network based SRT. Booting from SRT media (CD/DVD/ISO) will work without the PTR. .
When doing a network restore of a BMR Windows client, the Prepare To Restore sets up the boot environment on the Boot Server if a network based SRT is specified. It places entry pointers in the Boot Server that allows the booting client to access them and perform a boot action and a restore.
The following files are created and/or updated:
$INST_PATH\BareMetal\server\MACassign.txt
Each line in this file specifies a MAC address to respond to and the SRT to be used for the requesting client..
$INST_PATH\BareMetal\server\TFTP\$SRT_NAME.wim
The is a copy of the SRT "wim" image that was created on the BMR Boot Server. The name will match what is in the MACassign.txt file.
$INST_PATH\BareMetal\server\TFTP\Boot
This folder holds the BMR PXE boot application and support files. This part is not client or SRT specific.
None of the above exists until the first time a Prepare to Restore is done against a Windows client and a network based SRT is specified. Once created they stay resident unless manually removed.
After a client completes the recovery and reboots, it runs the "bmrcleanup" process. The last part of that is to send an update message to the BMR Master Server that the recovery has completed. That sets the task status to "Done". That in turn should cause the BMR Master daemon to cleanup the files it created/updated as part of the "Prepare To Restore" for that client.
If all the needed boot files still exist on the client and the PXE and tftp services are running, then booting to PXE by either a BIOS boot order setting or by using the PF12 key will initiate the PXE Boot and BMR restore process.
Also note, the BMR Windows Boot process will not start an automated restore of a Windows client if the "Tasks" section does not have a valid restore task in the "Queued" state and the SRT used for the restore does not have a valid pre-loaded entry to look for such a thing. The client should instead go to the "Generic Restore" panel where manual input is required for the restore to begin. If you exit out of that section the system will just reboot.
BTW, explain the process you went through to indicate that "the restore worked". At worst it should have acted as if booted from media.
