MOUNT10 VirtualRestore
User Manual
for XXXXX operating system
Your guide to
VirtualRestore for
Windows
SERVER EDITION V6.0 for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Copyright Notice and Proprietary Information
All rights reserved.
© Attix5, 2014
Instruction Symbols
The following icons appear in the user manual:
The information icon precedes important information.
The example icon indicates a practical illustration of a process or procedure.
The hint icon indicates a suggestion or hint to guide or assist you with performing a
task.
The warning icon provides a warning against potential mistakes and actions that could
cause critical error.
1
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
1. Introduction
Feature overview
In a disaster recovery (DR) scenario it is not always practical to wait for a full restore to be
completed before bringing a backup of a server (e.g. SQL Server) online. Even restoring at a full
100MB/s, a 1TB database can be offline for almost 3 hours.
VirtualRestore has the ability to instantly present the backed-up data on a virtual drive that
appears locally on the machine where the restore is required. The presented drive has full readwrite ability, allowing users to mount the database into SQL Server and be online in literally
seconds. Requested data blocks are fetched from the backup server on demand, and any data
written to the database is written to a temporary local file (the original backup is not modified in
any way). The live data or database can subsequently be migrated to a different machine as time
allows. Almost no disk space is required (only to store writes temporarily until the virtual drive
has been unmounted)
While VirtualRestore is very useful for DR scenarios, it also makes normal restores as easy as
browsing a local file system and copying the required files and folders.
Pre-requisites
VirtualRestore is seen as an optional, additional restore method to the primary standard restore
method. There are a few pre-requisites for the feature to perform optimally and be supported by
MOUNT10. The supported options are listed below:

VirtualRestore is only available for following MOUNT10 Products:
o
o



MOUNT10 COMBO, ECO, PRO
SWISS DATA BACKUP (SDB)
Backup Client requirements:
o V7 Sailfish R2 and above, 32-bit and 64-bit
o Accounts created after 01.07.2014.
o Older Accounts will need to be recreated or have to wait until September 2015
Streaming backup only
VirtualRestore Agent requires in minimum Windows 7/ Windows Server 2008 and
above, 64-bit.
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
2
SERVER EDITION V6.0 for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
2. Mounting a backup
In order to utilise the functionality of VirtualRestore, the backup(s) should to be mounted
locally on a machine where the restore is required.
Note:
Only Group Admin Access users are allowed to perform VirtualRestore via the
Console
1.
In the SP Console, select the account you want to mount as a local drive.
2. Click the VirtualRestore
VirtualRestore…
3
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
button
or
right
click
the
Account
and
select
3. The following warning will be displayed and request confirmation that the latest files
used for VirtualRestore will be downloaded from the Storage Platform and installed
locally (%AppData%\Roaming\Attix5 Pro\DynamicRestore).
4. Allow the DynamicRestore.exe for VirtualRestore to execute by selecting Yes if required
by Windows.
5. Supply the relevant Backup Account details.
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
4
SERVER EDITION V6.0 for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
6. Select the desired drive letter and specify which backups to mount.
Note: Ensure that the drive letter you choose is not already in use.
7.
Under the Advanced, choose whether read requests should be cached locally.
Note: This can speed up repetitive read requests but requires local disk space.
Choose Fixed Disk, Removable Disk or Mapped Network Drive for disk type.
Note: The mount choice is often dictated by the type of backup you are
mounting. For instance, you will not be able to mount an Exchange database as
a removable disk due to restrictions in Exchange.
Enter the start of a specific path if you only want certain files to be mounted. Leave this
blank if you want to mount the whole backup or all backups.
8. Click Mount.
5
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
9. A system tray VirtualRestore bubble will confirm the mounted Drive letter and Backup
Account details once mounted.
Note: Click this bubble to open a Windows Explorer for the drive letter chosen.
Double click on the VirtualRestore icon to open
the mounted drive letter in Windows Explorer.
10. In Windows Explorer, you will now see your mounted drive and can access your data as
with any normal drive letter and folder structure.
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
6
SERVER EDITION V6.0 for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
3. Using VirtualRestore
Mounted Backup Access
Files can be accessed in the mounted backup as if it is a local drive. Files can be read from and
written to the mounted drive. However all writes to the drive are temporary and will be lost
when the drive is dismounted as no permanent changes will be made to your backup. However,
any modified files can be migrated to a different machine/folder if necessary and this should be
done before the drive is unmounted.
Warning: Make a copy of all changes you want to keep to a regular hard
drive before unmounting the virtual drive.
General use and interaction
Hover the mouse pointer over the VirtualRestore icon in the system tray to show the drive letter
used and amount of data read and written to it.
The VirtualRestore agent will handle connection breaks by automatically reconnecting after any
communication issues have been experienced.
7
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
All logs will be kept under %AppData%\Roaming\MOUNT10\DynamicRestore\logs
VirtualRestore will provide data compatibility feedback when accessing data this is not
accessible via VirtualRestore
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland
8
SERVER EDITION V6.0 for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
4. Unmounting a backup
A backup can be dismounted in several ways:
 System tray icon – Right click the VirtualRestore icon and select Unmount

System tray – click the Safely Remove Hardware or Eject Media icon in the
system tray. This option is only available if a backup was mounted as a removable disk.

SP Console Activity View – right click on the Restore activity in the Activity View and
select Cancel Task.
Warning: Ensure no application has files open in the virtual drive before
unmounting it as it may have unpredictable results. Anything written to the
mounted disk will be lost when unmounted.
A confirmation bubble will be shown in the System tray confirming the drive was
unmounted.
9
MOUNT10 AG, Haldenstrasse 5, 6340 Baar, Switzerland