How to convert a disk backup to a virtual machine

Rather than converting a TIB file to a virtual disk file, which requires additional operations to bring the virtual disk into use, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 performs the conversion by recovery of a disk backup to a fully configured and operational new virtual machine. You have the ability to adapt the virtual machine configuration to your needs when configuring the recovery operation.

With Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows, you can recover a disk (volume) backup to a new virtual machine of any of the following types: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Parallels Workstation or Citrix XenServer Open Virtual Appliance (OVA).

Files of the new virtual machine will be placed in the folder you select. You can start the machine using the respective virtualization software or prepare the machine files for further usage. The Citrix XenServer Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) can be imported to a XenServer using Citrix XenCenter. The VMware Workstation machine can be converted to the open virtualization format (OVF) using the VMware OVF tool.

With Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi, you can recover a disk (volume) backup to a new virtual machine on the respective virtualization server.

Tip. Microsoft Virtual PC does not support disks that are larger than 127 GB. Acronis enables you to create a Virtual PC machine with larger disks so that you can attach the disks to a Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine.

To convert a disk backup to a virtual machine:

  1. Connect the console to a machine where Agent for Windows, Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi is installed.
  2. Do any of the following:
    • Click Recover to open the Recover data page. Start creating a recovery task as described in “Recovering data“. Select the archive and then select the disk or volume backup you want to convert.
    • Use the Navigation pane to navigate to the vault where the archive is stored. Select the archive and then select the disk or volume backup you want to convert. Click Recover as virtual machine. The Recover data page opens with the pre-selected backup.
  3. In Data type, select Disks or Volumes depending on what you need to convert.
  4. In Content, select the disks to convert or the volumes with the Master Boot Records (MBR) of the corresponding disks.
  5. In Recover to, select New virtual machine.
  6. In VM server, select the type of the new virtual machine to be created or on which virtualization server to create the machine.
  7. In VM name, enter the name for the new virtual machine.
  8. [Optionally] Review the Virtual machine settings and make changes if necessary. Here you can change the path to the new virtual machine.

    The same type of machines with the same name cannot be created in the same folder. Change either the VM name, or the path if you get an error message caused by identical names.

  9. Select the destination disk for each of the source disks or source volumes and MBRs.

    On a Microsoft Virtual PC, be sure to recover the disk or volume where the operating system’s loader resides to the Hard disk 1. Otherwise the operating system will not boot. This cannot be fixed by changing the boot device order in BIOS, because a Virtual PC ignores these settings.

  10. In When to recover, specify when to start the recovery task.
  11. [Optionally] Review Recovery options and change the settings from the default ones, if need be. You can specify in Recovery options > VM power management whether to start the new virtual machine automatically, after the recovery is completed. This option is available only when the new machine is created on a virtualization server.
  12. Click OK. If the recovery task is scheduled for the future, specify the credentials under which the task will run.

You will be taken to the Backup plans and tasks view where you can examine the state and progress of the recovery task.

  Post-conversion operations   

The resulting machine always has SCSI disk interface and basic MBR volumes. If the machine uses a custom boot loader, you might need to configure the loader to point to the new devices and reactivate it. Configuring GRUB is described in “How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration“.

Tip. If you want to preserve logical (LVM) volumes on a Linux machine, consider the alternative method of conversion. Create a new virtual machine, boot it using bootable media and perform recovery just like you do on a physical machine. The LVM structure can be automatically recreated during recovery if it has been saved in the backup.

How to convert a disk backup to a virtual machine