Operation Manual

3. Physical-to-physical, physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical machine migration.

5.2.1 Getting Universal Restore

Universal Restore is included in all Acronis products that enable disk-level or single-pass backup.

5.2.2 Using Universal Restore

During recovery

Universal Restore is available when configuring a disk or volume recovery, if a Windows or Linux

operating system is present in your selection of disks or volumes. If there are more than one

operating systems in your selection, you can apply Universal Restore to all Windows systems, all

Linux systems or to both Windows and Linux systems.

If the software cannot detect whether an operating system is present in the backup, it suggests using

Universal Restore on the off-chance of the system presence. These cases are as follows:

 the backup is split into several files

 the backup is located in Acronis Cloud Storage, on an FTP/SFTP server, CD, or DVD.

Universal Restore is not available when:

 the backup is located in Acronis Secure Zone

 you have chosen to use Acronis Active Restore (p. 235)

This is because these features are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same machine.

Without recovery

Under bootable media, you can also use Universal Restore without recovery by clicking Apply

Universal Restore in the media welcome screen. Universal Restore will be applied to the operating

system that already exists on the machine. If there are multiple operating systems, you are prompted

to choose the one to apply Universal Restore to.

5.2.2.1 Universal Restore in Windows

Preparation

Prepare drivers

Before applying Universal Restore to a Windows operating system, make sure that you have the

drivers for the new HDD controller and the chipset. These drivers are critical to start the operating

system. Use the CD or DVD supplied by the hardware vendor or download the drivers from the

vendor’s website. The driver files should have the *.inf, *.sys or *.oem extensions. If you download

the drivers in the *.exe, *.cab or *.zip format, extract them using a third-party application.

The best practice is to store drivers for all the hardware used in your organization in a single

repository sorted by device type or by the hardware configurations. You can keep a copy of the

repository on a DVD or a flash drive; pick some drivers and add them to the bootable media; create

the custom bootable media with the necessary drivers (and the necessary network configuration) for

each of your servers. Or, you can simply specify the path to the repository every time Universal

Restore is used.