Build a WinRE-based recovery media for system recovery

Information covered

• Purpose
• Description
• Build WinRE recovery media for future use
• Build WinRE recovery media for immediate use: create a bootable ISO file / USB
• Troubleshooting: .wim file is not detected by the recovery builder

Purpose

Learn to build a WinRE recovery media for immediate or future use.

Description

BMR Windows recovery media (or WinRE) is a recovery environment. IDrive BMR provides the ‘BMR Recovery Builder’ for creating the recovery media. You can use the BMR WinRE recovery media to:

1. Perform bare-metal restore of the physical machine backups in the BMR device.
2. Repair Windows OS booting issues during bare-metal restore and virtualization, using the in-built Windows tools.

Build WinRE recovery media for future use

Given below are the steps to build and upload a WinRE recovery media to BMR device, for use when you want to perform a bare-metal restore or repair boot issues during virtualization:

1. Navigate to 'Downloads' > 'BMR Recovery Builder'.
   

2. Launch the setup.

3. Select 'Future Use'.
   
   

4. Select the destination directory for the ISO image and click 'Next'.
   
   
    

5. The ISO creation progress will be displayed on the page.
   
   
    

6. Once the ISO build is completed, you will receive a success message. Enter the IP address and click 'Next'.
   
   
    

7. You will be directed to the sign-in page. Enter your account credentials and click 'Next'.
   
   
    

8. The upload progress will be displayed.
   
   
    

9. You will be notified once the upload is completed.
   
   
    

You can also navigate to 'Upload' on the application header to upload the ISO file.

Build WinRE recovery media for immediate use: create a bootable ISO file / USB

Refer the steps given below to create a bootable CD or USB with the recovery media, for immediate use.

1. Create a bootable CD for immediate use
   To create a bootable CD for immediate use,

1. Launch the setup.
2. Select 'Immediate Use'.
   
   
    
3. Choose 'Create a Bootable ISO file', browse and select the destination directory for the ISO image, and click 'Next'.

 

4. The recovery media creation progress will be displayed on the page.
   
   
    

5. You will receive a success message once the ISO build is completed.
   
   
    
6. Burn the ISO image to a CD to create a bootable CD.

2. Create a bootable USB for immediate use

Prerequisites: 

A USB drive with a minimum of 4 GB storage

To create a bootable USB for immediate use,

1. Select 'Create a bootable USB'. Then select the partition style and the USB device from the respective dropdowns to create the boot device and click 'Next'.
   
   
    

2. The USB creation progress will be displayed.
   
   
    

3. You will be notified once the USB bootable device is successfully created, along with further instruction to use the bootable device.
   
   
    

Troubleshooting: .wim file is not detected by the recovery builder

The Recovery Media Builder uses certain components of the Windows OS to create the bootable media. However, these may not be present in certain custom-builds. When the BMR recovery Builder is not able to locate the recovery components,  it will prompt you to download the ADK by Microsoft to build the recovery media.

To proceed with the recovery-media building process,

1. Click ‘Download ADK’.
   
   
    

2. The new page that appears will ask the user to download ADK from the link given in the instruction. After the ADK setup is completed the next button will be enabled.

   Note: The ADK will be downloaded from the Microsoft resources and may take several minutes.

3. Click 'Next' to proceed with the aforementioned options and build the ISO.