## Synology Active Backup Recovery Media Creator

Synology Active Backup Recovery Media Creator is a desktop tool affiliated to our business data protection solution — Active Backup for Business. This handy tool is designed for administrators to effectively perform a bare-metal or volume-level restore to create recovery media.

- System Requirements
- Supported Media Types
- Windows ADK Installation
- Recovery Media Cancellation or Failure
- Troubleshooting

### System Requirements

- Windows 7 (all editions)
- Windows 10 (all editions)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 and onward

### Supported Media Types

- A USB drive:
  - Required capacity: 1 GB
  - Required local storage capacity for temporary files: 2.5 GB
  - Supported recovery model: UEFI 64-bit
  - Supported USB file system: FAT32

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

### Windows ADK Installation

You must download and install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) to create recovery media. We recommend you to download and install version 1803 if you want to perform Synology Active Backup Recovery Media Creator. Please make sure the Windows ADK is installed in the default directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\

#### Note:

- Starting with Windows 10 (version 1809), Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), which is required for creating recovery media, is released separately from the Windows ADK. Please make sure you have downloaded both the Windows ADK and Windows PE add-on, and have installed the Windows ADK before installing the Windows PE add-on.

### Create USB Media

To create USB-based recovery media, please insert a USB drive with enough capacity (1 GB) into your device first, otherwise there will be no available USB drive for you to select.

#### To select the target USB:

All of the detected USB drives are listed in the drop-down menu. Please select a target USB drive and then click Create to start the automated recovery media process. 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:

Synology Active Backup 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.

#### To perform recovery media with a USB drive:

After a USB drive has been inserted into the device, 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 keep the USB drive attached to the device, and then reboot the device. Enter the BIOS mode and adjust the drive boot order to prioritize the USB drive. Subsequently, reboot the device again and the device should have entered the preinstallation environment.

#### Note:

- Please refer to Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard for more information on how the bare-metal or volume-level restore is performed after your device has entered the preinstallation environment.

### Create ISO 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.

A pop-up notification will appear if no Windows ADK is detected in the default installation path. 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.

#### To 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:

Synology Active Backup 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.

#### To perform recovery media with an ISO image:

A message will appear on the progress bar right at the bottom of the tool. Click Finish to open the directory for storing the ISO image. You can either mount the images onto a virtual machine or burn it into a disk by using a third-party tool. Please refer to Recovery Media Creation Guide and Active Backup for Business Recovery Wizard for more information on how recovery media in ISO format performs bare-metal or volume-level restore.

### Recovery Media Cancellation or Failure

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

### Troubleshooting

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.