Problems restoring image in VMWare over network

I created an image using Paragon Pro 9 Recovery WinPE CD and imaged a physical machine, and saved that image to a network via a mapped drive. I want to restore that image into a virtual machine environment. I have VMWare Server 2.0. I created a new VM, set the cdrom to boot from the Recovery CD ISO. It boots to the CD. I choose Configure Network, it gives an error: “the network is not present or not started”. Therefore I cannot access the network location to restore the image.

As a baseline test, I configured the same VM to boot to a DOS network boot disk. It booted, found a "AMD PCNet Adapter" and I was able map a network drive.

I have tried setting the VM's network card to bridged and NAT, same problem with both.

Those that have sucessfully restored in a virtual environement w/ Paragon, please help.... thank you!

 

Hello JohnHiro007,

Since you have the WinPE CD, find the "AMD PCNet Adapter" vista/2008 drivers and put it inside the ISO file. Boot to the winPE iso and go to Tools > Add Drivers > and add the inf file of the driver. Try again to configure your network.

Good luck,

Tommy

 

Alternatively, where your Paragon drive backup 9 is installed,

/program files/paragon software/db9/iso/

use the bootcd.iso instead of WinPE.

 

Do you have details on adding a driver to the ISO. Is that using a program like ISOBuster; adding the file in some particular directory, then re-burning the ISO?

The other question is the network card driver. Since this is a VM device; where is the driver for that to be found?

Thanks!

 

You can use MagicISO and put the driver in any folder and it will be accessible from the recovery environment. I would try on VMware website to see if they have the standalone drivers. If you can't find it, i would definitely give the other iso a try before using the WinPE cd again.

The bootcd.iso has a cache of drivers that work with some hardware where the winPE cannot.

 

Ok,

I have been trying the alternative boot cd: I was able to connect to the network. I have zero linux experience; so the mount point is not clear to me (i'm used to mapped network drives w/ drive letters); but if I put in /mnt/auto or /mnt/disk it seems to create some mapping mount point that I can access in the restore section of your software.

I then went into Simple Restore Wizard> start restore> 18 seconds later says finished. Log:
Restore Dis 0 from file: /mnt/auto/Paragon/techws01/techws01.pfb
Rebuilding partitions info…
All operations have been finished.

It cant possibly restore a 1.5GB image that fast, but for kicks, lets see if anything is on the VM hard drive> Press Close> reboot vm. Says “operating system not found”.

Boot to alternative cd iso again> network; this time mount point is /mnt/disk> simple restore wizard> Select destination to restore; shows Basic Disk 0 (VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive) 8GB (Free)> next> Restore Summary says before operations all space is green and “Free”, but the after operations shows the exact same all free green space?.> Next> this time it finished in 10 seconds.


I verified the original Paragon image files from the server, 3 files: techws01.pbf is 8KB, techws01_0000p.000 is 1.5GB, techws01_0000p.pfm is 24KB.
(plus, before this vm testing I did sucessfully perform a image restore to another physcial hard drive....so the image on the server should be good)

 

It's possible that the restore was successful but it only restored the MBR. Try instead of selecting the .PBF file, choose the .000 file.

For the problem persist, instead of using the Simple Restore Wizard from the main window, go to Drive Backup (first option) right click the partition you want to restore to, and then select image.

 

Boot with alternate recovery cd (this is linux based, right?) > networking; mount > simple restore USE MOUSE and select .000 file, instead of .PBF. when it asks for which hard drive CLICK ON IT WITH THE MOUSE, and it is now restoring files! Takes over 1 hr to finish.> reboot vm; says “operating system not found”.

Boot to linux cd again. > Network Configurator; setup mount point /mnt/auto> then Drive Backup> right click on “Basic Disk 0 (Size 8.0Gb)” (note; did not click on the line below which said: 0 C: Primary NTFS ….etc.) > choose Restore Hard Disk from Image> click on .000 file> error: "This image can't be restored on the current selection".> go back into Restore Hard Disk from Image> choose .PFB> give details of image (File System: NTFS. Size 37.3Gb. Used 4.0Gb)> click Restore> Apply> Yes. > Says “All operations have been completed” in less than 20 seconds later.

Do Restore process again; select the line below the 8GB drive> and select “restore to different hardware configuration”> same operation finished in 12 seconds.

Any issues w/ image being created w/ winpe recovery disk instead of linux version?

 

There shouldn't be any known issue with the image created in WinPE.

The time you restored with the .000 file seems to did the restore properly. After you restore the .000 file, go back to the main Window, run "Boot Corrector", search for Windows and update the MBR.

I think when you restore with the .PBF file, only the MBR is restored, and when the .000 is restored, the data is restored, but the partition is not yet ready to boot.

Once you restore the .000 file and used the boot corrector to update the MBR. Run the first option on the main menu, "Drive Backup" and right-click the partition it was restored to. Check in Modify > and "Set Inactive" and "Hide" is there to indicate that it's active and unhidden. Finally, browse into the partition to see if the file systems are restored and intact.

Did the image come from another machine? Different hard drive size? Different hardware?

-Tommy

 

I was able to get the winpe recovery disk to work w/ the network; you have to add ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000" to the vmx file; to force the VM to use an intel NIC instead of the AMD NIC. However, during the restore, at 85% done; this error came up: "I/O error on hard disk drive 0 has occurred. What would you like to do? (Retry) or (Ignore). I pressed both many times and error would just keep coming back. After pressing the Cancel button about 20 times, it then said "Completed". I tried to boot; but received "Operating System Not Found"

Instead of me trying to reinvent this process my self, can you please give me step by step directions on how you have sucessfully restored over the network to a VM? I talked to one of your techs a couple days ago on the phone (he told me to post any questions on this forum), and he said he had lots of experience with vmware in particular. Please do the procedure, writing down the version of the software, host os version, vm os version, etc.... all the details. I would like to replicate known working steps to get this feature your software advertises as one of its features, to work.

Thanks

 

Hello JohnHiro007,

If you were able to start the restore and got to 85%, which means you got the NIC card recognized, mounting points were added, and the image is accessible over the network. As mentioned above, point to the .000 file to restore that partition.

The I/O error you received indicates that perhaps during the restore process, did a hard drive, storage device or card reader got removed? Avoid mounting or dismounting any virtual or physical devices during the restore.

We use VMWare 6.5 workstations. The type of OS you're restoring shouldn't affect this.

-Tommy