More on Bare Metal Restore (DPM 2010)

I’ve some query whether the DPM 2010 (BMR features) can be able to restore Physical to another physical which is not similar specs.

DPM 2010 utilizes Windows backup feature for both SystemState and BMR backups. The support for restoring to dissimilar hardware is defined by Windows and generally speaking, it not supported.  

BMR for Windows 2003 is only possible by using the DPM System Recovery Tool (SRT) a separate installable product that shipped on the DPM 2007 and DPM 2010 installation media.

In either case, nothing is preventing you from restoring to dissimilar hardware, but as noted it isn't supported and may not work 100% of the time (this most probably due to the different hardware drivers, which you may have to reinstall manually) .

For Windows 2003, it has been suggested is the right one like using the SRT for BMR backups. But for Windows 2008 and later OS versions, You can safely rely on the Windows Backup to restore on alternate hardware as well, it is much reliable than earlier Windows 2003 BMR / ASR (another method of System State Backup) recovery.

But some important points note here are, the recovery target has to have higher disk configuration than the backed-up one. If you are restoring a 32 Bit OS backup then you need to use 32 bit Setup/Install media/WINRE media(and same for 64 bit as well).

(WINRE stands for – Windows Recovery Environment)

To be able able to do successful BMR recovery, you have to backup all critical volumes using -allcritical options of Windows backup (DPM uses this option so all DPM BMR backups are BMR able, but it will not have data volumes backup).

Please note that A DPM server cannot protect itself for BMR.

Abstracts from Forum & TechNet

It’s not so straight forward however it’s not impossible.

keywords : BMR , Bare Metal Restore, DPM 2010, Restore from Physical to Virtual