Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard

Active Backup for Business supports bare-metal and volume-level backup and restoration through a preconfigured recovery media. This article will explain how the recovery media works when restoring the entire machine with a specific backed up version stored on Synology NAS. For more information on how to configure the recovery media, please refer to Recovery Media Creation Guide.

Requirements and Limitations

• A preconfigured recovery media. To create this media, please consult Recovery Media Creation Guide for more information.
• Supported PC:
  • Windows 10 Creators Update (all editions)
  • Windows 10 (all editions)
  • Windows 8.1 (all editions)
  • Windows 7 SP1 (all editions)
• Supported physical server:
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
• Network connection is required throughout the entire recovery process. If the network connection is disabled during the recovery process, Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard will keep trying to resume the process until the Recovery Wizard reconnects to the server. You can disable the network connection at any time.
• We recommend you to install all the required drivers before you start. If you want to install more drivers, you can click on the context menu at the upper right corner of the wizard, and click Load Drivers to install a driver.

Boot Recovery Media

After you have mounted the ISO image or attached the USB drive to the device intended for restoration, press F2 to enter the BIOS mode once your device has been rebooted. Please note that this hotkey may vary according to different vendors. Afterward, navigate to the Boot tab, and prioritize the order of CD-ROM Drive and Removable Devices according to where the recovery media is located. Exit the setup process and you will be directed to Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard, which will start the recovery process automatically. You can either browse the user interface of Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard as displayed in the Overview section or immediately start the recovery process as shown in the Recovery section.

Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard: Overview

• On the top right corner of Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard, you can check the Internet status by clicking .
• Click at the top right corner of the wizard to view the context menu where several options are provided:
  • List of hardware drivers: Here you can check the installed drivers and network adapter. Click Load Drivers to install necessary drivers if needed.

    

  • Command-line interface: Access to the command-line interface is supported here for you to check the status and information of the device and activate built-in programs by commands.
  • Internet Settings: You can decide either to obtain IP address and DNS server address automatically, or set a designated IP address or DNS server for the device.

    

  • About: Displaying the current version information.
  • Restart: This option allows you to restart the device at any stage of the process. Please note that once you restart the device, the previous settings will be reset, and you have to log in and configure again.
  • Turn off: This option allows you to turn off the device at any stage of the process.

Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard: Recovery

To restore a version from the server:

After you have entered the BIOS menu and selected the boot order for booting recovery media, you will be directed to the welcome page of Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard. Once you have been directed to the welcome page, you can follow the steps below to start the recovery process:

1. Load drivers and network adapters:

   This step is optional and is only required when you are using specific network adapters or drivers. Recovery may fail if the necessary driver has not been installed. To ensure a smoother recovery process, we strongly suggest you to double check the installed drivers and adapters in this step.

   • Network adapter:

   Please click List of hardware drivers to check if the required network adapter has been installed, or click Internet Settings to fix the problem when failing to connect to the Internet by default. Recovery cannot be performed without network connection. In most cases, the Internet should be automatically supported if the WinPE applied by the recovery media is for Windows 10.

   • Load drivers:

   Please click List of hardware drivers in the context menu and click Load Drivers to install the target driver when needed. It is suggested to load and install all the necessary drivers in advance.

   Note: This method is not applicable for drivers that need to be rebooted to become effective. Please refer to this article to check whether your drivers need to be rebooted.

2. Log in to the Synology NAS:

   Enter the server IP or domain name and credentials to log in to the Synology NAS to retrieve the stored versions. The devices and versions which you can see in the next two steps are based on your logged in account.

   
3. Select the device and the task:

   Once logged in, all the available backed up device and tasks for the logged in account will be displayed. Information of the backup type and Last Backup Time is listed on the table. Last Backup Time refers to the start time of the last backup.

   
4. Select a version:

   The versions of the selected task are displayed on the left panel, and the detailed information of the selected version is displayed on the right panel.

   Version Information:
   • Disk No.: When you have more than one disk that has been backed up in a version, the disk will be listed in this numerical order.
   • Partition table: Active Backup for Business backs up the device’s partition table. This information is recorded and also displayed in this table.
   • Capacity (per disk): The “Capacity” on the top bar refers to the needed space when restoring the entire disk to this device.
   • Drive (letter): The backed up drives will be listed with its specific letter.
   • Type: Displaying whether the partition type of the drive is main or logic, and whether it is system volume or not.
   • Capacity (per volume): The capacity under each drive stands for the used space of the drive.
   • File system: Only NTFS is supported.
   
• When no sufficient disk has been installed on the device:

When a chosen version requires more disks than the disks that have been installed on the device, a notification will pop up. To fix this problem, do any of the following:

• Select another version.
• Click Load Drivers in the hardware driver list to load required hardware drivers.
• Install more hard disks on the device, load the drivers, and try again.
• When not enough space on the disk(s):

When the chosen version requires more space than the space of the installed hard disk on the device, a notification will pop up and list the disks which need more space to restore. To fix this problem, do any of the following:

• Select another version.
• Change the installed hard disks.

Note:

The capacity of each installed hard disk on the device has to be more than or equal to the corresponding backup disk in the selected version. Even when the total capacity of all installed hard disk is more than or equal to the total capacity of the selected version, the capacity of individual hard disk still needs to be more or equal.

5. Check and confirm the summary to start the recovery process:

   Please note that recovery is an irreversible action. Once started, it is not allowed to be stopped and rolled back to where it was before the recovery. Cancellation during the process may prevent the device from booting successfully.

   
• When internet disconnected during the recovery:

Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard will continuously try to reconnect to the server and resume the recovery when the internet disconnected during the process. You can stop this at any time by canceling the recovery, restarting the device, or turning off the device via the context menu.

6. Finish and reboot:

   Click Finish and decide if you wish to reboot the device or turn it off when the recovery is ready. Please remove the recovery media before rebooting the device.

   

To cancel the recovery:

1. Click on Cancel at the bottom of the wizard to cancel the recovery before it finishes. Please note that both recovery and cancellation is irreversible.
   
2. Click Finish to choose either to reboot the device or turn it off.

To retrieve "recovery.log" and send it to Synology Technical Support when the recovery fails:

When a bare metal or volume level recovery has failed, you may retrieve the "recovery.log" file and send it to Synology Technical Support for further assistance. Please note that "recovery.log" is only retrievable on Recovery Wizard before you restart or turn off your device.

To retrieve the "recovery.log" file, please follow the below steps:

1. Click at the top right corner of the wizard to open the context menu.
2. Click Command-line interface to launch command-line interface.
3. Enter the below command to launch Notepad:

   notepad

4. Choose Open in the notepad, and check the drive letter of the inserted USB drive. For example, if the drive letter of the inserted USB drive is “S”, please enter the below command to copy the log to the USB:

   copy X:\ActiveBackup\recovery.log S:

   A message confirming the action of copying the file will appear after entering this command.
5. Go to the USB drive where you copied the log file to, and send the file named "recovery.log" to Synology Technical Support for further troubleshooting.