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The best practice is to store drivers for all the hardware used in your organization in a single
repository sorted by device type or by the hardware configurations. You can keep a copy of the
repository on a DVD or a flash drive; pick some drivers and add them to the bootable media; create
the custom bootable media with the necessary drivers (and the necessary network configuration) for
each of your servers. Or you can simply specify the path to the repository every time Universal
Restore is used.
Make sure you have access to the device with drivers when working under bootable media. Even if
you configure system disk recovery in a Windows environment, the machine will reboot and recovery
will proceed in the Linux-based environment. Use WinPE-based media if the device is available in
Windows but Linux-based media does not detect it.
Universal Restore settings
Automatic driver search
Specify where the program will search for the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), HDD controller
driver and network adapter driver(s):
- If the drivers are on a vendor's disc or other removable media, turn on the Search removable
media.
- If the drivers are located in a networked folder or on the bootable media, specify the path to
the folder in the Search folder field.
During recovery, Universal Restore will perform the recursive search in all the sub-folders of the
specified folder, find the most suitable HAL and HDD controller drivers of all those available, and
install them into the recovered system. Universal Restore also searches for the network adapter
driver; the path to the found driver is then transmitted by Universal Restore to the operating
system. If the hardware has multiple network interface cards, Universal Restore will try to
configure all the cards' drivers. In case Universal Restore cannot find a compatible driver in the
specified locations, it will specify the problem device and ask for a disc or a network path to the
driver.
Once Windows boots, it will initialize the standard procedure for installing new hardware. The
network adapter driver will be installed silently if the driver has the Microsoft Windows
signature. Otherwise, Windows will ask for confirmation whether to install the unsigned driver.
After that, you will be able to configure the network connection and specify drivers for the video
adapter, USB and other devices.
Mass storage drivers to install anyway
To access this option, select the Advanced view check box.
If the target hardware has a specific mass storage controller such as RAID (especially NVIDIA
RAID) or a fibre channel adapter, specify the appropriate drivers in the Drivers field.
The drivers defined here will have priority. They will be installed, with appropriate warnings,
even if the program finds a better driver.
Use this option only if the automatic drivers search does not help to boot the system.
Drivers for a virtual machine
When recovering a system to a new virtual machine, the Universal Restore technology is applied in
the background, because the program knows what drivers are required for the supported virtual
machines.
When recovering the system to an existing virtual machine that uses SCSI hard drive controller, be
sure to specify SCSI drivers for the virtual environment, in the Mass storage drivers to install anyway
