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When restoring an entire VM, what exactly does this message mean?

J

Greetings, all. I’m prepared to be labeled a “noob” here but I’ve been unable to locate any documentation on what this message actually means in plain language.

I have a VM that I’d like to do a test restore on. Walking through the wizard everything makes sense (restore to a different location, disconnect network, etc.) until the final step.

The following existing objects will be deleted from the infrastructure.

What is this (to my thinking) unclear message trying to communicate? I do not wish for my VM, its virtual disks, or its backup history to be affected in any way, I’m simply trying to restore a second test copy. Thanks in advance.

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Best answer by coolsport00 1 March 2024, 22:27

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coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Hi @JArmbrister -

It means exactly what it says. I assume you’re doing a Full VM Restore? If so, then the original VM will indeed be deleted so a new VM will be restored. Sometimes I want to keep my orig VMs when doing a restore, so what I do is migrate the VM to a new Datastore (assuming you’re using VMware), and remove the VM from the vCenter/Host Inventory.

Hope this helps.

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

If you’re doing Instant Recovery, the original VM will be removed, as stated in the User Guide:

 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

If you’re doing Instant Recovery, the original VM will be removed, as stated in the User Guide:

 

It is exactly this as Shane has posted. ☝🏻

In order to recover a VM using Instant Recovery, Veeam has to delete the existing VM and then restore the same VM from the backup.  It will power it back on, etc. once done.

Nothing to fear - done it many times.

If you need to restore a VM to a restore point you can do a Rollback instead as that will put just the changed blocks back instead to the restore point.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

@JArmbrister - are you using Hyper-V or VMware?

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
J

Thank you both for your replies @Chris.Childerhose @coolsport00. Please excuse my slowness to comprehend.

I understand that in the case of Instant Recovery the original VM would be deleted by necessity. My question is in regard to choosing “Entire VM” from the toolbar and “Restore to a new location, or with different settings.”

I then chose the same host (my main Hyper-V machine), disconnected the virtual switch, and changed the name to testrestore_myvm with a new VM UUID.

I still get the aforementioned warning and do not understand why the original VM would be affected at all.

coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

If using Hyper-V, for Full (Entire) VM Restore, see the HV Guide info:

HV Entire VM Restore

As such, you’ll get that error.

Also, I saw a Forum post someone created on the message you shared. Read the last comment on why the message appears for Hyper-V. If you do a restore in HV and want to place the VM in a new Folder but the Folder doesn’t exist on the storage, Veeam doesn’t create the folder and will actually revert to the orig VM folder, thus the message. You would need to create the new folder manually.

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
J

That was the missing bit of information I needed, thanks @coolsport00!

Naturally, if the path is the same as the original VM instance it would have to be written over. When creating and selecting a new path manually, the message about deleting existing objects does not appear.

Once you know, you know. I agree with the other poster in the thread you linked: the datastore step could definitely be more intuitive.

Thanks again.

coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

No problem @JArmbrister . On the Forum there...you can make a ‘feature request’ for Veeam to add some function or message in the wizard to be a bit more intuitive. The Product Managers are pretty good at responding...and if it’s a viable request, will probably be added in a future release!

Cheers!

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00

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