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How to restore a file with StorageCraft ShadowProtect

I've installed ShadowProtect on most of my clients' servers - it's a great product and if you're not using it for backups, then seriously consider it. One of our sub-contractors emailed me with some issues on restoring files so I thought I'd add my reply to him here as a quick cheat sheet:

  • Log onto the server you need to restore the file from
  • Open up the share where your backups are going
  • Browse through the list of files and look for an .cd or .cw or .cm file around the correct date
    • -cd.spi is a consolidated daily
    • -cw.spi is a consolidated weekly
    • -cm.spi is a consolidated monthly
    • for a full listing see here: http://bit.ly/1mNLBps
  • once you've found the correct file, right click on it and choose ShadowProtect Mount
  • pick the defaults, except when it comes to the right date - the consolidated files have a list of possible days / weeks that you can choose - find the right one and click on it, then go Next
  • mount the file as read-only unless you need read-write access
  • the computer will mount the drive as a new drive letter
  • browse through that drive until you find the file you want to restore, then copy and paste it to the right location and that's it
  • unmount the backup image and all finished! 

It's important to note this is only one of two ways of doing it. You can use the wizard that is part of ShadowProtect and it's even easier. At the time I was in a hurry and had to find multiple awful files so I used this method, plus I find that I use this method for Granular Recovery for Exchange restores.

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