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Question

Restoring from USB


Is it alright to restore multiple different computers from the same Veeam Recovery Media or is it best practice to create the recovery media after every Agent install?

 

For example, I have two computers (Computer A and Computer B).  When I install the agent for Computer A, I create the recovery media ISO.  Then, when Computer B needs to be restored, is it appropriate to use the recovery media ISO that was created from Computer A? 

 

From the looks of it, everything is pulled from the VEEAM Server rather than stored in the ISO, but I wanted to double-check before I store a copy of the recovery media somewhere for emergencies.

 

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!

5 comments

Chris.Childerhose
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  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 8504 comments
  • November 4, 2024

You can do this but if there are drivers in Computer B that Computer A does not have in the ISO then you might run in to problems.  But if the HW is identical then you should be good to use the same ISO.  The only way to know for sure is test it by booting Computer B with the ISO file.


So the ISO does have device-specific things that install with it?


Chris.Childerhose
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  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 8504 comments
  • November 4, 2024

When you create the ISO from the Agent it can install drivers, etc. on to it yes.  It depends which options you select when creating.  But most of the time the standard ISO should work on multiple machines.  Again easiest way to test is boot Computer B with it and see how it behaves.

 
 
 

dloseke
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  • Veeam Vanguard
  • 1447 comments
  • November 4, 2024

As Chris noted, there is a generic ISO that can be generated for recovery, but if there’s anything special about machine A that is different that machine B, it’s going to be best to generate the ISO from each machine to account for those differences.  If they are exactly the same, then you’re probably be safe to generate one recovery drive for both, but I sure as heck would be testing that recovery disk on both machines to validate that it works.


lukas.k
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  • Veeam Vanguard
  • 204 comments
  • November 5, 2024

Just a small hint if you consider using a generic ISO (as @dloseke mentioned):

Please remember that in case you are using encryption you need to keep the key available. :-)

 

I can confirm the usage of a generic ISO but you might have to deal with driver issues. That could be solved in one of the later steps when restoring.