Can we attach/mount a backup as a new disk on a VM?

[Taomyn]

Can we attach/mount a backup as a new disk on a VM so I can then copy files within the VM?

I have a Windows server that has three attached disks, and one data disk's main volume is formatted ReFS - and yes I regret this now, and yes I know PBS does not do file restores from it but I at least wanted a full disk backup. So I instead I was wondering if I could attach the backup as a new disk to the same or another VM so I could use Windows to access the files.

 

[UdoB]

Take a look at <your vm> --> Hardware --> select one Hard Disk by clicking once --> top area drop down menu "Disk Action" --> Reassign Owner.

This way you can take a given virtual disk from a turned off(!) VM and give it to another VM.

Disclaimer: I have never used or tested this feature!

Disclaimer 2: doing "something wrong" will possibly destroy your data. Always have good backups!

 

[sw-omit]

Take a look at <your vm> --> Hardware --> select one Hard Disk by clicking once --> top area drop down menu "Disk Action" --> Reassign Owner.

This way you can take a given virtual disk from a turned off(!) VM and give it to another VM.

Disclaimer: I have never used or tested this feature!

Disclaimer 2: doing "something wrong" will possibly destroy your data. Always have good backups!

Note to this, in the same bar you also have "detach", and then you can re-assign owner and attach while the VM is running, like moving over a external harddrive (and similarly like one, make sure to cleanly disconnect from the old system beforehand if you don't want to cause errors).

That said though, you should be able to restore an entire disk (probably safest to do it to a new temporary VM to prevent mix-ups) and then move and attach it to the main VM afterwards.

 

[Taomyn]

I don't think you've understood what I asked: My understanding is that when performing a file restore that PBS attaches the backup to itself so it can present the content to you, but because it doesn't understand ReFS it fails. So I'm asking, can the backup be mounted to something else e.g. the server which was backed up or any other VM. If I recall correctly from the old days of using Avamar, which I don't miss, for restoring Exchange mailboxes we had a dedicated VM that could attach to a backup mounted on the Avamar server. It was clunky but it worked especially for restoring individual mails.