How to create a manual replica for BMR and System State from a Primary DPM server to a Secondary

During creation of a protection group using the Create New Protection Group Wizard, DPM asks you to select a replica creation method to copy the data to be protected to the DPM computer. You can selectAutomatically, for which DPM copies the data across the network, or Manually. When you select manual replica creation, you must manually copy the data you want protected to the DPM computer using removable media.

To create a replica manually, you must know the details of the source path on the protected computer and the replica path on the DPM server. It is critical that you retain the same directory structure and properties (time stamps and security permissions) as those for the data that you are protecting.

Here is how to create a manual replica for BMR and System State from a primary DPM server to a secondary DPM server.

NOTE The steps contained below are applicable to DPM 2010, DPM 2012 and DPM 2012 SP1.

On the PRIMARY DPM SERVER

NOTE Please run the commands below from a CMD prompt with Administrator permissions (Run as Administrator):

1. Mount the replica volume using the following steps:

a. At a command prompt, type mountvol and then press Enter.

b. From the list of mounted volumes, pick the volume that corresponds to the appropriate path. The path will look like the following:

\\?\Volume{a2072784-7573-4dce-a7e9-26713fd12697}\
<Drive:>\DPM\DPM\Volumes\Replica\Fileserver.mydomain.corp.myorg.com\File System\D-87a82ad4-f9d2-11d9-b758-000d561ae74f\

c. Type the following to mount the volume to a drive letter:

mountvol k:\ \\?\Volume{a2072784-7573-4dce-a7e9-26713fd12697}\

d. Click Start and double-click My Computer, then on the Tools menu click Folder Options. In the Folder Options dialog box, on the View tab, in the Advanced settings box under Hidden files and folders, clear Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) and click Yes to confirm that you want to display the files, then click OK.

2. Once mounted, download PSXEC from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx and extract the tool to the desktop.

3. Open a command prompt using Administrator permissions and browse to the location where you extracted the PSXEC tool.

4. Run the following command:

psxec.exe -s cmd.exe

This will open a command prompt session under the system context at C:\Windows\System32.

5. Run the WHOAMI command to confirm that the user is NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.

6. Change the drive from C:\Windows\System32\ to the drive letter used to mount the Replica Volume ( K: ):

7. From the K:\ prompt, run the DIR command to list the directories in the replica volume. Note that you will not be able to drill down further to the directories inside.

8. Create a TEST folder on the drive where you would like to recover the files. In our example we will use M:\TEST.

9. Run the following command:

K:\> xcopy *.* M:\TEST /S /E

This will copy the contents of the Replica volume we mounted as the K:\ drive to the M:\TEST folder.

NOTE The data recovered will have now inherited the permissions of the drive on which it was recovered.

10. Copy the contents (the WindowsImageBackup folder) in M:\TEST\xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\FULL\C-Vol\ (except the DATASETCONTEXTINFORMATION.XML file) to an external HDD.

11. Run the following command to dismount the Replica volume:

mountvol k:\ /d

On the SECONDARY DPM SERVER

1. On secondary DPM server, create a Protection Group and configure it with the Manual Replica Creation option.

2. Select the data source listed under the Protection Group and click on View Details under the Details pane (bottom on the console) and copy the Replica path and paste it into Notepad.

Example: Computer\System Protection\Bare Metal Recovery on DC01.Contoso.com   c:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\Replica\Non VSS Datasource Writer\vol_a7efe5af-34ab-4bb6-ba60-0256844ffa23\37d71385-dbc9-4f32-b68e-cc4228ef5ddf\Full\C-Vol\

3. Open the following location using Windows Explorer:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\Replica\Non VSS Datasource Writer\vol_a7efe5af-34ab-4bb6-ba60-0256844ffa23\37d71385-dbc9-4f32-b68e-cc4228ef5ddf\Full\

4. Once open, copy the contents from the HDD we used in step 10 above to C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\Replica\Non VSS Datasource Writer\vol_a7efe5af-34ab-4bb6-ba60-0256844ffa23\37d71385-dbc9-4f32-b68e-cc4228ef5ddf\Full\C-Vol\. Note that this is an example replica path – yours may vary slightly.

5. Lastly, run a Consistency Check and let it finish.

Please note that these same steps can be performed to copy not just System State and BMR but to copy other protected data sources from the Primary DPM server to the Secondary DPM server as well.