Boot from recovery disc and restore an image backup for a disaster recovery
NovaBACKUP
A guide for booting your PC from the recovery disc & restore an image backup for a disaster recovery
Things you will need:
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An image backup that is on an external drive you can access - (Here is an article on how to create scheduled backups with retention policies. It includes how to schedule an image backup for disaster recovery scenarios.)
Create a weekly full backup, a daily differential backup, and a monthly image backup with retention
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A bootable recovery disc - (Here is an article on how to create a bootable recovery disc using simple or advanced)
Simple Mode
Advance Mode
The first thing you are going to do is start the computer. You will need to know which key on your PC's keyboard to press during the startup screen to enter your "Boot Device Menu". From there you will select your optical CD drive or USB flash drive as the first drive in your boot-up sequence. This will allow your system to access the recovery boot disk media which you will have already created, rather than attempting to boot from your hard disk.
Note: We DO NOT recommend using a DVD disc as your recovery boot disk as a number of DVD drives experience problems when attempting to use boot-able disc media.
Here is an article that explains how to boot from your pc:
Booting your PC from the recovery boot disk
Once you are booting from your recovery disc, make sure to hit any key to confirm that you want to boot to the recovery disc. (If you miss this step, you will be skipped over the boot disc and brought to the next boot device that is your sequence order.)
Wait as the Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) loads.
Wait as the image backup recovery environment loads.
The recovery program will load and allow you to go through the restore process to restore your recovery image file. Click “restore”.
Click on browse to find your .ndf file
Select the partition or disk you want to restore. Then select the destination of where you want to restore. Your destination needs to be the same amount or more space than the original hard drive. Even if your image backup file is less space, the destination drive needs to reflect the same amount or more space as the original drive. Click Next.
Double check your settings before clicking “Finish”.
Click finish. Once the restore process starts, it will warn you that doing the restore will clear the destination drive’s layout. Click yes and continue.
If your destination drive was bootable previously, it will mention that it will remain bootable after the restore process.
Wait until the restore process finishes (this can take some time).
After it says, “Process completed” you can hit the “restart” button to restart the computer.
When you restart your computer, make sure that you select the hard drive of where the destination of the restore went.
Once the operating system loads you will have successfully restored your image backup onto your destination drive for a disaster recovery scenario.