Restore Verification for Image-Based Backups

Restore Verification is a special feature that checks a backup to guarantee that it can be restored. Restore Verification is available for image-based backups and can be executed locally (on your computer) and in virtual environments (when Backup for Windows is installed on VMware or Hyper-V virtual machines).

This chapter covers the following topics:

How It Works

Restore verification is an auxiliary restore plan that retrieves only necessary backup parts from backup storage, mounts a Hyper-V virtual machine on the fly, then performs a system logon.

Since there is no need to download the whole backup dataset to make sure the image-based backup is fully valid and can be guaranteed to restore, the restore verification is performed quickly and clearly. The amount of data on partitions not related to system boot does not affect restore verification time.

For example, when backing up a 160 GB system disk with 120 GB of occupied disk space, restore verification downloads only 8 GB from backup storage and takes a few seconds from the start to a system logon.

Restore verification is supported by Windows 8 (Pro and Enterprise editions) and later versions, and Windows Server 2012 R2 and later versions.

System Requirements

Since the restore verification feature is based on Hyper-V mechanisms, a Hyper-V environment is required on your operating system.

The table below contains the list of supported Windows versions and editions.

Windows Version	Supported Editions
Windows 8	Enterprise, Pro
Windows 8.1	Enterprise, Pro
Windows 10	Enterprise, Pro, Education
Windows 11	Pro
Windows Server 2012 R2	Essentials, Enterprise, Datacenter
Windows Server 2016	Standard, Essentials, Datacenter
Windows Server 2019	Standard, Essentials, Datacenter
Windows Server 2022	Standard, Datacenter
Windows Server 2025	Standard, Datacenter

The environment required for Restore Verification is installed automatically. If the installation fails, you will see the appropriate warning (code 2042). Generally, a simple computer reboot helps. If the installation failure persists, try performing the installation via the command line.

Use the following command: cloudberry backup.exe /installdiskdriver

Run Restore Verification

To run restore verification for an image-based backup, perform the following steps:

Switch to the Backup Storage tab.
Find the required image-based backup plan generation.
Expand the generation to select the required restore point.
Right-click the required restore point, then select Restore Verification (BETA).

This creates and runs a test restore plan that starts a Hyper-V VM using a necessary part of the backed-up data downloaded from backup storage. To check that the test virtual machine is running, see its state in the preview:

Optionally, to log on to the VM, click the Open Hyper-V VMC link.

Enable Restore Verification in Backup Plan

You can apply Restore Verification on a regular basis by including it in a backup plan.

To Enable Restore Verification

Edit the image-based backup plan to which you intend to apply this feature.
Follow the Backup Wizard steps to the Consistency Check and Restore Verification subsection of the Image-Based Backup Plan chapter.
Select the restore verification run option:
- Do not Run Restore Verification. Select this option to run restore verification manually.
- Run for Full only. Select this option to run restore verification for full backups only. You can manage a schedule for full and incremental backups on the Schedule step of the Backup Wizard.
- Run for Incremental only. Select this option to run restore verification for incremental backups only. You can manage a schedule for full and incremental backups on the Schedule step of the Backup Wizard.
- Run for Full and Incremental. Select this option to run restore verification for both backup types.
Click Advanced Settings to specify Hyper-V VM settings:

In the Screenshot Interval field, specify how often to take a screenshot of the Hyper-V VM to check its state visually.
In the Number of virtual processors field, specify the number of virtual CPUs for the Hyper-V VM.
In the Startup RAM field, specify the amount of RAM allocated for the restore verification VM.
In the Report Failure if it is not detected in: field, specify the period after which Restore Verification will be terminated with an error.

Click OK.
Follow other Backup Wizard steps to save the configuration of this backup plan.

In some cases, if a volume with a temporary folder is full, a restore verification can terminate with the following error: Cannot complete Restore Verification. Not enough space in the temporary folder: c:\temp

Once this error occurs, clean up the temporary folder, or change its location to another volume with more free space. To do this, proceed as follows:

In the Tools menu, select Options.
Switch to the Memory Options tab.
In the Temporary folder field, specify the temporary folder location.

Click OK or Apply.

To learn more about Hyper-V, refer to the Virtualization article at docs.microsoft.com.

Restore Verification in Long-Term Storage

If your storage destination is a long-term one (this can be S3 Glacier, S3 Deep Archive, or Azure Archive storage classes), Restore Verification is disabled.

Since Restore Verification requires downloading parts of data from a cloud, with long-term storage it will take a significant amount of time, up to several hours. Additionally, downloading backup data from the cloud incurs extra retrieval charges.