Restoring Guest Files and Folders for Hyper-V

You can restore files and folders from a Hyper-V virtual machine backup to the source VM, to another VM, or to a guest agent.

Before You Begin

• For virtual machines that are hosted on an SMB share, a Microsoft limitation prevents restore operations from reading file and folder information from a snap backup. To enable restores of guest files and folders from Hyper-V backups using a server plan, enable the Collect file details option on the VM group before performing the backup.

• To restore virtual machine files and folders when the total restore size is larger than 10 GB or has more than 10,000 files, use a restore-only file system agent installed in the destination client or virtual machine.

• To restore to a VM, ensure that the following requirements are met:

  • The proxy for the restore must be Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 or later.

  • The guest operating system for the destination VM must be Windows 2008 R2 SP1 or later.

  • The destination VM must have the latest integration services installed.

Procedure

1. From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

   The Virtual machines page appears.

2. On the Hypervisors tab, click the hypervisor.

   The hypervisor page appears. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.

3. On the VM groups tab, in the row for the VM group, click the action button , and then click Restore.

   The Select restore type page appears.

4. To restore from a specific copy of backup data, in the upper-right corner of the page, click Settings, and then from the Source list, select the copy.

   If you leave select Automatic selected, the restore operation searches for the requested data in the primary copy, and automatically selects a different copy if the data is not found in the primary copy.

5. Select Guest files to restore files or folders to the source virtual machine, to another virtual machine, or to a guest agent.

   The Restore page appears.

6. Expand the tree on the left and select the objects to be restored on the right. Select an item or click on an entry in the Name column to browse within an item. For hierarchical data such as files, folders, and disks, you can click an entry in the path listing above the right pane to return to a higher level of the hierarchy.

   In the top right corner of the page, a "Showing" message indicates what backup data is being displayed. You can click the down arrow beside this message and select any of the following options:

   • Show latest backups: Only display data for the most recent backups.

   • Show backups as of a specific date: Only display data up to the date you specify.

   • Show backups for a date range: Only display data within the data range you specify.

7. Click Restore.

8. In the Restore options dialog box, provide the requested information:

   1. To restore in place:

      1. Ensure that the source VM is selected (the default option).

      2. Optional: Change the value in the Proxy box to use a different proxy.

         For Hyper-V, all Hyper-V nodes are displayed.

   2. To restore to a different VM:

      1. Select Other VM.

         By default, the same proxy that was used for the backup performs the restore.

      2. Optional: Change the value in the Proxy box to use a different proxy.

         The proxy must be Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 or later.

      3. If the destination VM resides on another hypervisor, select the host name of the hypervisor from the Destination hypervisor list, and then browse to select the destination VM.

         The guest operating system for the destination VM must be Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 or later, and the destination VM must have the latest integration services installed.

      4. In the Virtual machine login area, type the username and password for the destination VM.

   3. To restore to a guest agent:

      1. Select Guest agent.

      2. Select the guest agent from the Destination list.

         By default, the Local System account on the destination client is used to perform the restore operation; but you can use the Impersonate user option to provide credentials for another user account.

      3. Optional: To use the Impersonate user option, type the host name and credentials for the new destination hypervisor.

         The user must have permissions to create files in the specified location on the destination.

9. For the Path box, type a full path for the location where files should be restored.

10. To delete an existing file and replace it with the restored file, select Overwrite if it already exists.

11. Click Submit to run the restore job.