Recovery Media Creation

Synology Active Backup for Business is an all-in-one backup solution that supports backing up Windows PCs, Windows servers, and Linux servers.

The following sections introduce the methods for creating recovery media automatically and manually for Windows devices. We recommend you to create recovery media automatically, if possible, because this method is easier. This article introduces the automatic creation method in detail while briefly covers the manual creation method because creating recovery media manually requires relatively more instructions and steps. For users needing to create recovery media manually, refer to Recovery Media Creation Guide for the details regarding its process, requirements, and limitations.

Note:

You can create recovery media for Windows devices using Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator. For Linux devices, download the Active Backup for Business recovery media (.iso) from Download Center. Create a bootable USB drive using the ISO file and restore your Linux devices. Refer to this tutorial for the instructions.

Contents

Automatically Create Recovery Media
Manually Create Recovery Media

Automatically Create Recovery Media

Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator is a desktop tool affiliated to Active Backup for Business. This automated tool is designed for administrators to effectively and automatically create recovery media to perform bare-metal or volume-level restore. Administrators can adopt this tool if the device intended to be restored is not running a 32-bit version of Windows and does not contain specific drivers, time zone, and language. This tool will create a 64-bit recovery media, and the language and time zone of the media will be the same as the device that creates recovery media.

You can go to Download Center or click here to download this tool and use it to create recovery media if all the default settings do not need to be changed and no further customization is required. Please refer to the section Method 1: Automatically Create Recovery Media in Recovery Media Creation Guide for more information on the automatic recovery media creation.

Note:

You only need to download Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator when creating recovery media automatically. The recovery application Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard is embedded in Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator and therefore does not need to be additionally downloaded and installed.

System Requirements

Windows 7 (all editions)
Windows 10 (all editions)
Windows server 2008 R2 SP1 and onward

Supported Media Types

A USB drive:
- Required capacity: 1 GB
- Required local system volume storage capacity for temporary files: 2.5 GB
- Supported recovery model: UEFI 64-bit

An ISO image:
- Required capacity: 1 GB
- Required local system volume storage capacity for temporary files: 2.5 GB
- Supported recovery model: Legacy/UEFI 64-bit

Create USB Recovery Media

To create USB-based recovery media, please insert a USB drive with enough capacity (1 GB at least) into your device first, otherwise there will be no available USB drive for you to select. Afterward, launch Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator and select USB media.

Windows ADK installation:

A pop-up notification will appear if no Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) is detected. Click Download and the wizard will guide you through the entire Windows ADK installation process. Please make sure you have already installed the Windows ADK and Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).

Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) are the only two features required for building recovery media. Installing the Windows ADK may take a few minutes. If you want to download the Windows ADK in advance, we recommend downloading version 1803.

Note:

Windows PE, which is required for creating recovery media, is released separately from the Windows ADK starting with Windows 10 (version 1809). To create recovery media, both the Windows ADK and WinPE packs need to be downloaded and installed. For more information, please refer to Microsoft's article Create bootable WinPE media.
Internet connection must be available when downloading and installing the Windows ADK. Under the circumstances where you cannot use the online ADK installer with GUI, please refer to Microsoft's article Install the Windows ADK offline for more information.
WinPE for Windows 10 (version 1803) is the suggested WinPE version to be downloaded and installed through the Windows ADK. To further verify its compatibility with the environment of your device, please refer to Microsoft's article What’s New in Windows PE.

Select the target USB drive:

All of the detected USB drives will be listed in the drop-down menu on Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator. Please select a target USB drive and then click Create to start the process of automatic recovery media creation. Please note that this action cannot be undone once the creation process of USB media has started. Please make sure you want to proceed with USB media creation before you start the recovery media process.

Time zone and language settings:

Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator automatically detects and applies the local time zone and language to the created recovery media. The default settings will be applied if the local time zone and language cannot be detected, and the default time zone and language are Pacific Standard Time (PST) and English, respectively. Please note that the time zone settings may affect the backup time of the recovery media version shown in Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard, which can be downloaded from Download Center.

Boot recovery media:

After the recovery media has been created, a message will appear on the progress bar at the bottom of the tool. Click Finish to open the USB device that should have been renamed as Syno Media. Please insert the USB drive onto the device intended to be restored, and then reboot the device. Press F2 to enter the BIOS mode. Please note that this hotkey may vary according to different vendors. Afterward, navigate to the Boot tab, and prioritize Removable Devices. Exit the setup process and you will be directed to Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard, which will start the recovery process automatically.

Note:

Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard does not need to be additionally downloaded and installed because it is embedded in Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator.

Create ISO Recovery Media

System volume of at least 2.5 GB is required for creating recovery media in ISO format because creating an ISO image itself will occupy 1 GB, and the temporary files will occupy the remaining 1.5 GB. Afterward, launch Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator and select ISO media.

Windows ADK installation:

A pop-up notification will appear if no Windows ADK is detected. Click Download and the wizard will guide you through the entire Windows ADK installation process. Please make sure you have already installed the Windows ADK and Windows PE.

Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) are the only two features required for building recovery media. Installing the Windows ADK may take a few minutes. If you want to download the Windows ADK in advance, we recommend downloading version 1803.

Note:

Windows PE, which is required for creating recovery media, is released separately from the Windows ADK starting with Windows 10 (version 1809). To create recovery media, both the Windows ADK and WinPE packs need to be downloaded and installed. For more information, please refer to Microsoft's article Create bootable WinPE media.
Internet connection must be available when downloading and installing the Windows ADK. Under the circumstances where you cannot use the online ADK installer with GUI, please refer to Microsoft's article Install the Windows ADK offline for more information.
WinPE for Windows 10 (version 1803) is the suggested WinPE version to be downloaded and installed through the Windows ADK. To further verify its compatibility with the environment of your device, please refer to Microsoft's article What’s New in Windows PE.

Specify the ISO image path:

To create ISO media, please define the directory for storing the recovery media once it is ready in ISO format. Click to browse and select the target directory.

Time zone and language settings:

Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator automatically detects and applies the local time zone and language to the created recovery media. The default settings will be applied if the local time zone and language cannot be detected, and the default time zone and language are Pacific Standard Time (PST) and English, respectively. Please note that the time zone settings may affect the backup time of the recovery media version shown in Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard.

Boot recovery media:

After the recovery media has been created, a message will appear on the progress bar at the bottom of the tool. Click Finish to open the directory for storing the ISO image. You can either mount the image onto the virtual machine intended for restoration, or burn the image into a disk by using a third-party tool and then insert the disk into the device that you want to restore. Reboot the device and press F2 to enter the BIOS mode. Please note that this hotkey may vary according to different vendors. Afterward, navigate to the Boot tab, and prioritize the order of CD-ROM Drive. Exit the setup process and you will be directed to Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard, which will start the recovery process automatically.

Note:

Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard does not need to be additionally downloaded and installed because it is embedded in Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator.

Cancel Recovery Media or Troubleshoot Failure

To cancel a recovery media creation that is in progress, simply close the application interface. The cancellation process may take a while because of the time required for unmounting the mounted files and deleting the unfinished pack. If a specific stage of the creation process fails, Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator will automatically finish the current stage, and then unmount and delete boot.wim. However, recovery media created in USB format cannot be rolled back once the creation process has begun.

If recovery media creation fails during the creation process, please open the extracted folder named Synology Restore Media Creator and fetch the log titled restore-media.log and send it to Synology Technical Support to receive further assistance.

Manually Create Recovery Media

Recovery media must be created manually if the device intended to be restored is running a 32-bit version of Windows or contains specific driver versions, time zone, or language. Creating the recovery media manually is relatively more complicated, involves more instructions, and requires the downloading of Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard from Download Center. Please refer to the section Method 2: Manually Create Recovery Media in Recovery Media Creation Guide for more step-by-step details on how to create recovery media manually.

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