Windows Server Backup Recovery

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You can use Azure Backup to protect your Windows Server from corruptions, attacks, and disasters. Azure Backup provides a lightweight tool known as the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent. The MARS agent is installed on the Windows Server to protect files and folders, and server configuration info via Windows Server System State. This tutorial explains how you can use MARS Agent to back up your Windows Server to Azure. In this tutorial you learn how to:

In the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent console, click Back Up Now. On the Back Up Now wizard, select one from Files and Folders or System State that you want to back up and click Next. On the Confirmation page, review the settings that the Back Up Now wizard uses to back up your server. Then click Back Up. Click Close to close the wizard. If you close the wizard before the back up process finishes, the wizard continues to run in the background. Connect the Drive that contains backup files to the server. Boot from the “server 2019 media” and choose “Repair your computer” option. Click on “troubleshoot” - “System Image Recovery” Your server will restart automatically after succeeding the windows server 2019 os image restore.

  • Download and set up the MARS Agent
  • Configure back up times and retention schedule for your server’s backups
  • Perform an ad hoc back up

Sign in to Azure

Sign in to the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.

Create a Recovery Services vault

Before you can back up Windows Server, you must create a place for the backups, or restore points, to be stored. A Recovery Services vault is a container in Azure that stores the backups from your Windows Server. Follow the steps below to create a Recovery Services vault in the Azure portal.

  1. On the left-hand menu, select All services and in the services list, type Recovery Services. Click Recovery Services vaults.

  2. On the Recovery Services vaults menu, click Add.

  3. In the Recovery Services vault menu,

    • Type myRecoveryServicesVault in Name.
    • The current subscription ID appears in Subscription.
    • For Resource group, select Use existing and choose myResourceGroup. If myResourceGroup doesn't exist, select Create New and type myResourceGroup.
    • From the Location drop-down menu, choose West Europe.
    • Click Create to create your Recovery Services vault.

Once your vault is created, it appears in the list of Recovery Services vaults.

Download Recovery Services agent

The Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent creates an association between Windows Server and your Recovery Services vault. The following procedure explains how to download the agent to your server.

  1. From the list of Recovery Services vaults, select myRecoveryServicesVault to open its dashboard.

  2. On the vault dashboard menu, click Backup.

  3. On the Backup Goal menu:

    • for Where is your workload running?, select On-premises,
    • for What do you want to backup?, select Files and folders and System State

  4. Click Prepare Infrastructure to open the Prepare infrastructure menu.

  5. On the Prepare infrastructure menu, click Download Agent for Windows Server or Windows Client to download the MARSAgentInstaller.exe.

    The installer opens a separate browser and downloads MARSAgentInstaller.exe.

  6. Before you run the downloaded file, on the Prepare infrastructure menu click Download and save the Vault Credentials file. Vault credentials are required to connect the MARS Agent with the Recovery Services vault.

Install and register the agent

  1. Locate and double-click the downloaded MARSagentinstaller.exe.

  2. The Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent Setup Wizard appears. As you go through the wizard, provide the following information when prompted and click Register.

    • Location for the installation and cache folder.

    • Proxy server info if you use a proxy server to connect to the internet.

    • Your user name and password details if you use an authenticated proxy.

  3. At the end of the wizard, click Proceed to Registration and provide the Vault Credentials file you downloaded in the previous procedure.

  4. When prompted, provide an encryption passphrase to encrypt backups from Windows Server. Save the passphrase in a secure location as Microsoft cannot recover the passphrase if it is lost.

  5. Click Finish.

Configure Backup and Retention

You use the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent to schedule when backups to Azure, occur on Windows Server. Execute the following steps on the server where you downloaded the agent.

  1. Open the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent. You can find it by searching your machine for Microsoft Azure Backup.

  2. In the Recovery Services agent console, click Schedule Backup under the Actions Pane.

  3. Click Next to navigate to the Select Items to Back up page.

  4. Click Add Items and from the dialog box that opens, select System State and files or folders that you want to back up. Then click OK.

  5. Click Next.

  6. On the Specify Backup Schedule (System State) page, specify the time of the day, or week when backups need to be triggered for System State and click Next.

  7. On the Select Retention Policy (System State) page, select the Retention Policy for the backup copy for System State and click Next.

  8. Similarly, select the backup schedule and retention policy for selected files and folders.

  9. On the Choose Initial Back up Type page, select Automatically over the network, and click Next.

  10. On the Confirmation page, review the information, and click Finish.

  11. After the wizard finishes creating the backup schedule, click Close.

Perform an ad hoc back up

You have established the schedule when backup jobs run. However, you have not backed up the server. It is a disaster recovery best practice to run an on-demand backup to ensure data resiliency for your server.

  1. In the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent console, click Back Up Now.

  2. On the Back Up Now wizard, select one from Files and Folders or System State that you want to back up and click Next

  3. On the Confirmation page, review the settings that the Back Up Now wizard uses to back up your server. Then click Back Up.

  4. Click Close to close the wizard. If you close the wizard before the back up process finishes, the wizard continues to run in the background.

  5. After the initial backup is completed, Job completed status appears in Jobs pane of the MARS agent console.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you used the Azure portal to:

  • Create a Recovery Services vault
  • Download the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent
  • Install the agent
  • Configure backup for Windows Server
  • Perform an on-demand backup

Continue to the next tutorial to recover files from Azure to Windows Server

What is a bare metal recovery?

Bare metal recovery (BMR) is a feature of Windows Server Backup that allows you to restore your operating system (OS) or the entire system to another machine with dissimilar hardware from “bare metal”. It does not require any installed software or system on the destination machine, so you can also use BMR to restore physical machine to virtual machine and back.

What do you need to prepare?

Windows Server Backup Restore Files To Different Computer

Windows Server Backup (WSB) was first introduced in Windows Server 2008. To perform bare metal restore, you need to create a bare metal backup of Windows Server 2008 (R2), 2012 (R2), or 2016. When creating the Windows Server bare metal backup with WSB, you need to select the item for Bare Metal Recovery.

To be able to use Windows Recovery Environment, you need a Windows Server recovery disk or installation disc. If you want to restore Windows Server 2012, the recovery disk must be made in Windows Server 2012.

Make sure the destination hard drive to receive the bare metal recovery has enough disk space. If you want to restore to a new machine, the new hard drive needs to be the same size or large than the source disk that was backed up regardless of the size of the data.

How to perform a Windows Server bare metal restore

With the things prepared, you can follow the steps below to restore your Windows Server to another machine. This method applies to Windows Server 2008, 2012, and 2016 including R2. Some details on entering the recovery environment may be different.

Windows Server bare metal recovery:

1. Insert the Windows Server installation disc on your new server and boot from it. Select the Language and keyboard, and then click “Next”.

2. In the next screen, click “Repair your computer” instead of “Install now”. Then select “Troubleshooting”, and then “System Recovery Options”.

Windows Server Backup Recovery Download

3. All the recovery options will be listed here. If you prefer to use the command line, you can select “Command Prompt” to perform WBadmin bare metal recovery. Otherwise, select “Windows Complete PC Restore” to restore server.

4. In the next screen, the latest backup will be selected by default, and you just need to click Next to continue.

5. After specifying the backup version, click “Finish” to start the bare metal restore. This might take a while depending on how much data to be restored.

When the process is complete, you can boot your old OS on the new server machine. As mentioned, if the destination disk is smaller than the source disk, the recovery will fail with an error: Could not complete the server restore.

If that may be your case or you want to something simpler, you can try a server backup software to restore the server to a dissimilar hardware.

Bare metal restore with AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper Server is backup and restore software that works for Windows Server 2008 (R2)/2012(R2)/2016. Unlike Windows Server Backup, it allows you to restore to a smaller disk when performing bare metal recovery.

As you know, your new server may have different firmware with the original. In that case, Windows Restore will fail because of UEFI/BIOS. In that case, you can use AOMEI Backupper because it is capable of restore from MBR to GPT disk directly, and vice versa. It provides a 30-day free trial, which is way enough to finish your bare metal restore.

If you want to protect unlimited PCs and servers within your company, you may choose AOMEI Backupper Technician Plus. It offers unlimited billable technical services to clients. It also enables you to copy installation directory for portable version creation.

Before you can restore Windows Server to a dissimilar hardware, you need to create a system image backup or hard drive backup, and then create a bootable media using a USB flash drive or DVD/CD.

To run Windows Server bare metal recovery:

1. Connect the bootable media to your new server and boot from it. After loading the main interface of AOMEI Backupper, click the 'Restore' and“Select Image File” to locate the image backup you created before.

Windows server backup recovery software

3. Select the backup image and click Next.

4. Select item from the image and click Next.

5. Specify the destination location to receive the server bare metal restore, and then click 'Next” to continue.

4. In the next screen, click “Start Restore” to start the restoration.

In a short while, the process will be complete. Then you can start your server and enjoy. Compared to Windows Server Backup bare metal recovery, Universal Restore of AOMEI Backupper is easier and faster. You do not need to worry about firmware and capacity of your hard drive or SSD.

Windows Server Backup Recovery Tool

If you just want to move the system to a server with the same hardware, you can just clone hard drive with AOMEI Backupper and then install the cloned hard drive to your new server machine.