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Replacing Legacy Image Backup Jobs with Full System Recovery

Replace a legacy image backup job with a backup job that has Disaster Recovery selected, create recovery media, and retire the legacy job safely.

Applies to: NovaBACKUP PC Agent and NovaBACKUP Server Agent, version 22, including installations managed from a NovaBACKUP Management Console (CMon).

Legacy image backup jobs keep running after an upgrade to NovaBACKUP 22, but they are not converted. Full system recovery, a regular backup job with Disaster Recovery selected, replaces them. It uses incremental-forever backups, writes to local or cloud storage, and can be set up on the computer or from the CMon.

What You'll Learn

  • How to create a backup job with Disaster Recovery selected
  • How to create recovery media for the computer
  • How to retire the legacy image backup job safely

Prerequisites

  • NovaBACKUP 22 installed on the computer
  • A license that includes the Disaster Recovery feature
  • A Local Backup or Cloud Backup device with enough free space or quota for a full backup of the system
  • To create recovery media: the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) with the Deployment Tools feature, and the Windows PE add-on

Important: Full system recovery restores computers that use UEFI with a GPT partition table. Computers that use a master boot record (MBR) partition table are not supported for Disaster Recovery in this version of NovaBACKUP. A restore from recovery media recreates the disk that Windows was installed on. Drives on other disks that were selected in the backup are restored afterward with a file restore. A restore to a Hyper-V virtual machine recreates all of the computer's internal disks.

Step 1: Create the backup job

  1. In NovaBACKUP 22, select Backup in the menu.
  2. Open the backup job list at the top of the page and select Create new backup.
  3. Enter a job name of up to 50 characters.
  4. In the selection tree, select Disaster Recovery. It backs up the drive Windows runs from. If the legacy image backup job also imaged other drives, such as D:, select those drives too. Otherwise, their data is no longer protected after you retire the legacy job.
  5. Select the destination device.
  6. Review the settings, then set a schedule on the Schedule page.
  7. Select Save.
  8. Select Start to run the first backup now. The first run is a full backup of the system.

Note: To set this up for many computers, create the job from the CMon. Jobs pushed from the CMon open as read-only on the computer and run as configured in the CMon. See Managing NovaBACKUP 22 Agents from the CMon.

Step 2: Create recovery media

Recovery media starts the computer in the NovaBACKUP recovery environment, where you restore it. Create the media from the Disaster Recovery page in NovaBACKUP 22:

MediaUse it when
ISO FileYou want a file to burn to disc, write to a USB drive later, or attach to a virtual machine
USB DriveYou want bootable media ready to use on this or another computer
Recovery PartitionYou want to start recovery from this computer's own disk, without separate media

Leave Include network drivers selected so the recovery environment can reach a network share or cloud storage. Select Include device configuration to have your storage devices ready in the recovery environment.

Important: With Include device configuration selected, the media contains your device credentials and backup encryption keys. Store it securely, or leave the option cleared if you cannot control who has access to the media.

Step 3: Retire the legacy image backup job

  1. Confirm in Job History that the new backup job completed successfully.
  2. Open the Legacy NovaBACKUP UI from About > Open legacy interface.
  3. Stop the legacy image backup job by removing its schedule.
  4. Keep the legacy image backups and your legacy boot media until the retention period of those backups ends.

Note: A legacy image backup job and a backup job with Disaster Recovery selected can exist on the same computer. They run one after the other, not at the same time, so you can keep both while you confirm the new job.

What full system recovery can restore to

  • The same computer or different hardware
  • A smaller disk, as long as it holds the data being restored
  • A new Hyper-V virtual machine on an existing Hyper-V host

The restore runs on the computer being restored, from its recovery media or recovery partition, using backups on local or cloud storage.

Related Articles

  • Clean Install vs. Upgrade, and Reaching Legacy Image Data
  • Upgrading from NovaBACKUP 21.x to NovaBACKUP 22
  • Working with the Legacy NovaBACKUP UI

Still Need Help?

Contact NovaBACKUP Support: