- Booting an Image using Macrium viBoot
- Deleting a viBoot Virtual Machine
What is Macrium viBoot?
Macrium viBoot enables you, to instantly create, start and manage Microsoft Hyper-V and VirtualBox virtual machines using a Macrium Reflect image file as the basis of the virtual machine storage sub-system.
Macrium viBoot can be used to boot a Macrium image as a virtual machine, enabling near instant failover in the event of a disaster, validation that a Macrium Reflect image will be bootable when restoring, or to retreieve data from applications installed in a bootable image.
Installing Macrium viBoot
Macrium viBoot can be installed during the SiteManager Platform installation. This requires either Microsoft Hyper-V or Virtual Box installed as the hypervisor for the virtual machine creation.
For existing SiteManager Platform installations, Macrium viBoot can be installed by navigating to the control and then selecting ‘Programs and Features’. Select ‘Macrium SiteManager Platform’ from the list of installed programs, then select ‘Change’.
In the wizard that opens, select ‘Next’ then ‘Modify’. On the next page of the wizard, additional installation options can be specified. Ensure that ‘Install viBoot’ is selected, then select ‘Next’ and then ‘Install’.
Booting an Image using Macrium viBoot
The Macrium viBoot UI is shown below:
The 'New Virtual Machine' wizard can be launched by selecting 'New...' in the top left corner of viBoot.
Image files can be found in the repository folder using the Explorer. The default structure of the repository is:
\\Server\Share\ComputerName\Definition\ImageFile.mrimgx
The image that will be used as the basis for the virtual machine can be selected on the second page of the 'New Virtual Machine' wizard. Select 'Add' and then navigate to where the golden image is located.
The final page of the New Virtual Machine wizard is where the settings for the virtual machine are specified:
If 'Automatically power on the virtual machine after creation' is selected, the virtual machine window will open automatically following its creation:
Deleting a viBoot Virtual Machine
Once you have finished using the virtual machine, it can be deleted to reclaim system resources. To delete a viBoot virtual machine, first turn off the virtual machine. In the the viBoot application, select the virtual machine then select 'Delete':
The window that opens will prompt for confirmation before deleting the virtual machine. The 'Create a backup before deleting' checkbox can be used to automatically create a backup of the virtual machine before it is deleted:
If the 'Create a backup before deleting' checkbox is selected, an additional window will be displayed prompting for the type of backup that will be created:
If 'Create an Incremental backup' or 'Create a Differential backup' is selected, the backup will be appended to the same backup set that was used during the viBoot virtual machine's creation.