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 11 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 11 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, Citrix XenServer Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) or Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM).

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. You can move the files of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine to a machine running Linux; from there, you can run this virtual machine by using the Virtual Machine Manager program. The VMware Workstation machine can be converted to the open virtualization format (OVF) using the VMware OVF tool.

With Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX(i), 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 the management server or to a machine where Agent for Windows, Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX(i) is installed.
  2. Click Recover to open the Recover data page.
  3. Click Select data. Use the Data view tab or the Archive view tab to select the disks or volumes to convert.
  4. In Recover to, select New virtual machine.
  5. [Only if the console is connected to the management server] Click Browse. Select the machine with agent that will perform conversion.
  6. In VM type, select the resulting virtual machine type and location.
  7. [Optional] In Virtual machine settings you can change the path to the new virtual machine, rename the machine, change the disk provisioning mode, the allocated memory, and other settings.

    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.

  8. The destination disk for each of the source disks or source volumes and MBRs will be selected automatically. If required, you can change the destination disks.

    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.

  9. In When to recover, specify when to start the recovery task.
  10. [Optional] In Task parameters, 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.
  11. 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.