Bare-Metal Recovery
Restore an entire server to bare metal, including the operating system, applications, and data.
What Is Bare-Metal Recovery?
Bare-Metal Recovery (BMR) creates a complete system image of your server, capturing the operating system, installed applications, system configuration, boot records, and all data volumes. This allows you to restore the entire server to new hardware — even dissimilar hardware — without reinstalling the OS or applications manually.
- •Full system image including OS, boot partition, system partition, and all data volumes.
- •Dissimilar hardware restore: Move your server to different hardware (different RAID controller, NIC, etc.).
- •Block-level incremental: After the initial full image, only changed disk blocks are backed up.
- •Available on Server plans only.
Setting Up a Bare-Metal Recovery Backup
Use the Bare-Metal Recovery wizard in the desktop agent to create a backup set for full system image protection. The wizard guides you through volume selection, restore preparation notes, destination, and scheduling.
- •Step 1: Volumes — The system and boot volumes are pre-selected and required. Optionally select additional data volumes to include in the backup. You can change this selection anytime.
- •Step 2: Restore Notes — Add notes about your hardware configuration, RAID controller, network adapter drivers, or anything else recovery personnel should know when restoring to dissimilar hardware.
- •Step 3: Destination — Choose backup destination: iDrive e2 (cloud) or local storage.
- •Step 4: Schedule — Set frequency for full images and incremental backups. Weekly full + daily incremental is typical.
- •Step 5: Review — Verify selections and click Create Backup Set. The first full image starts immediately and may take several hours.
ℹ Note
System and boot volumes are mandatory and cannot be deselected. Only data volumes are optional. This ensures you always have a complete bootable image. As of v1.3.3, the BMR runner ships end-to-end: backup invokes
wbadmin start backup -allCritical -vssFull; restore is a "create recovery image" workflow — BackupEngine reassembles to a user-picked external drive and drops a RESTORE_INSTRUCTIONS.txt with the exactwbadmin sysrecovery commands to run from Windows Recovery Environment. (BMR is fundamentally offline-restore by Windows constraint — you cannot in-place restore the volume you booted from.)Creating a BMR Backup
BMR backup is configured in the System Image tab of the desktop agent. Enable it alongside your regular file-level backups for comprehensive protection.
- •Open the desktop agent and go to the System Image tab.
- •Click the Bare-Metal Recovery card to launch the wizard.
- •The system and boot volumes are pre-selected. Optionally add data volumes.
- •Choose a schedule (weekly full + daily incremental is recommended for most servers).
- •Click Create Backup Set to begin the initial full image.
- •The initial full image may take several hours depending on disk size and network speed.
Configure BMR via CLI
# Enable BMR backup for all volumes backupengine bmr enable --volumes all # Enable BMR for specific volumes backupengine bmr enable --volumes C:,D: # Schedule weekly full + daily incremental backupengine bmr schedule \ --full weekly --full-day sunday --full-time 01:00 \ --incremental daily --incremental-time 23:00 # Run a full BMR backup now backupengine bmr backup --type full
ℹ Note
BackupEngine uses FastCDC content-defined chunking on the disk image, so incremental BMR backups are highly efficient. Only genuinely changed data is uploaded, even though the backup captures a full block-level image.
Creating Boot Media
To perform a bare-metal restore, you need BackupEngine boot media — a bootable USB drive or ISO image that contains the recovery environment.
- •Open the desktop agent and go to System Image → Boot Media.
- •Choose USB Drive or ISO Image as the output format.
- •The boot media includes network drivers, the BackupEngine recovery agent, and a minimal WinPE environment.
- •For dissimilar hardware restores, you can inject additional drivers during boot media creation.
- •Create boot media before you need it. Store it in a safe location.
Create boot media via CLI
# Create a bootable ISO backupengine bmr create-media --format iso --output "D:\BackupEngine-Recovery.iso" # Create a bootable USB drive backupengine bmr create-media --format usb --drive F: # Add additional drivers for dissimilar hardware backupengine bmr create-media --format iso \ --output "D:\BackupEngine-Recovery.iso" \ --inject-drivers "C:\Drivers\NewServer\"
⚠ Warning
Always test your boot media on a non-production machine to verify it boots correctly and can connect to the network. A recovery scenario is not the time to discover driver issues.
Performing a Bare-Metal Restore
When you need to restore a server to bare metal, boot from the recovery media and follow the guided restoration process.
- •Boot the target server from the BackupEngine recovery USB or ISO.
- •The recovery environment loads and connects to the network automatically.
- •Sign in with your BackupEngine account credentials.
- •Select the source server and the restore point you want to recover from.
- •Map source volumes to target disks (the tool auto-maps when disk sizes match).
- •For dissimilar hardware, the recovery environment automatically injects appropriate drivers.
- •Click Restore to begin. The process writes the system image directly to the target disks.
- •Once complete, remove the boot media and restart. The server boots with the restored OS and data.
💡 Tip
For large servers, a BMR restore can take several hours over a network connection. If you have local storage available, consider downloading the system image to a local drive first, then restoring from the local copy for faster recovery.
Dissimilar Hardware Restore
BackupEngine can restore a system image to hardware that differs from the original server, such as a replacement with a different RAID controller, network adapter, or storage configuration. The recovery environment automatically injects drivers needed for the new hardware.
- •During backup, note key hardware details (RAID controller model, NIC, any specialty adapters) in the backup set's restore notes.
- •During restore, the recovery environment auto-detects dissimilar hardware and loads appropriate drivers.
- •You can also manually inject additional drivers during boot media creation (using the backupengine bmr create-media --inject-drivers option).
- •After restore, Windows will detect the new hardware and install drivers automatically on first boot.
- •Test dissimilar hardware restores regularly — do not assume it will work when you need it.
⚠ Warning
Some hardware changes (e.g., switching from IDE to NVMe-only storage) may require manual driver installation post-restore. Always have driver media available, and test restore procedures quarterly in a lab environment.