Hi,

I'm trying to boot from my restored image - I'm using VMWare to run it, and I've succesfully restored the image from a backup to a drive within the virtual, but when booting up the virtual machine it won't find the hard drive and will only boot to CD?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks, Joe 

Joe,

The Recommended environment does not contain the correct VMWare SCSI drivers.  You can either change VMWare to use the IDE disk or use the legacy environment that does support the VMWare SCSI disk.

 STC

Hi STC,

I've already changed the Hard Drive to IDE format and it still won't boot - I guess I'll try restoring through the Legacy environment, although when I tried it before it wouldn't recognise SCSI drive, it only recognised IDE.

 Even changing all the boot options to only boot to hard drive, all I get on screen is a black screen with a white under score _

Any ideas?

 Thanks, Joe 

I've tried booting from Windows Server disk but it sticks on the "Setup is starting Windows 2000" and gets no further, I've used 2 different disks with the same outcome.

Any ideas?

 At the time you restore the OS backup image to the VM, did you check the Hardware Independent Restore (HIR) Checkbox?

Does version 3.1 of the Recovery Environment now contain the VMWare SCSI drivers?

Thank you.

I believe it does (contain VMware's SCSI driver).  However you need to make sure that your machine has sufficient memory otherwise you will experience strange behavior when you boot the recovery environment.  For the Recommended environment it's best to have around 512MB (although I've successfully used it with around 450MB, but I say 512MB just to be safe).  For the Legacy environment I believe you can get by with far less, maybe even 128MB.  I'm going to have to double check this, but I believe it's accurate.

Nate, I had a brief conversation with StorageCraft support on this issue.  The good news is that the ShadowProtect Recovery Environment 3.1 does contain the VMware SCSI drivers; the bad news, however, is that they don’t work.  (Whether this is a VMware issue or a ShadowProtect problem, I know not.)

In any case, is there a workaround solution that would allow a user to restore a ShadowProtect 3.1 image into a VMware virtual machine configured with a SCSI (not IDE) hard disk?

Thank you.

Pleonasm,

It may just be a matter of using the proper SCSI disk in VMware. They offer two choices of SCSI disks when you create a new disk (Bus Logics and LSI).  You may be using a Bus Logics disk and Storage Craft included the LSI drivers.

I do a lot of work with BartPE. I have created a Shadow Protect plugin using the Legacy version of the recovery environment. I also have created a plugin that installs all the features of VMware Tools in my BartPE (including folder sharing, mouse pointer integration, networking and SCSI drivers). This allows me to boot a new VM with BartPE and restore  Shadow Protect image to the VM. As long as SP in installed in the image, HIR is available so the SCSI driver can be added.

If there is any interest in this forum, I'll make the details avaiable. 

Mustang, yes – please do share the details on your BartPE plugin.

Also, to confirm, are you saying that you have successfully used ShadowProtect 3.1 to restore into a VMware Workstation 6.0 virtual machine configured with a LSI SCSI virtual hard disk, and that it works properly?

Thank you.

Currently my VMare Tools plugin is based on a WinXP Pro VM and is using the BusLogic SCSI driver. I just tried to do a full test of a physical desktop SP image to a new VMware Workstation 6.0 VM using a BusLogic SCSI disk. All the element are in place. I can boot the new VM using a BartPE ISO and SP can see the SCSI drive. I can select an image from an internal drive because shared folders are working and the root of the internal drive is shared. HIR would be available and I could point it to the BusLogic driver. I can't complete the test because of lack of available disk space. I can't retore an image to a partition that is smaller than the original partition. I would have to resize my Windows partition way down and take another image just to prove what I already know will work. 

The VMware Tools 6.0 plugin is currently available on my website at http://www.mechrest.com/plugins . It sells for $1.99. The SP 3.0 plugin is not available at this time. I would make it available for a price of $1.99, if Nate approves. The plugin does not distribute any Storage Craft files. It just instructs the user to copy files from the Legacy recovery disk. If Nate wants to see the plugin, I'll provide him with a copy. If Nate approves and you are interested, I'll follow through with a complete test before you purchase the plugins.

The VMware Tools plugin could easily be adjusted to be based on a W2K3 source with files from a W2K3 VM and the LSI Logic SCSI drivers. This would allow for the restoration of a physical server to a new VM with an LSI Logic SCSI drive. 

I just had a chance to add the LSI Logic SCSI driver to the test version of my VMware Tools 6 plugin. I now have both the BusLogic and LSI Logic SCSI drivers in the plugin.

See a screen shot of a VM with an IDE disk and an LSI Logic SCSI disk attached, which has been booted with BartPE. http://www.mechrest.com/plugins/VM_LSI.jpg  

Hey Mustang,

Any follow up on either the SP plugin or an update to your VMWare Tools 6 plugin? Also, I don't see your VMWare plugin (or for that matter, the Virtual PC plugin) on your site anymore. Is it still available?

Thanks,

Corey