Overview

The native virtual disk export utility within x360Recover currently does not support creation of virtual disk images in native 4K block size. 

However, this article will provide a workaround for creating a 4K formatted VHDX virtual disk file. 

At present, Hyper-V is the only hypervisor with simple support for virtualizing protected systems with native 4K disk volumes and only the VHDX virtual disk format supports this feature.  (VMware does not support guest operating systems with 4K virtual disk volumes.) 

Prerequisites

You will need a working Hyper-V  server to create 4K formatted virtual disk images.  (You will require this Hypervisor machine in order to create a virtual machine using these exported disks as well.)

Instructions

1. To begin, select a recovery point on the appliance and start iSCSI in Test or Live mode.  (It is not necessary to use Live mode for this operation, so Test mode is preferred.)

2. From a Windows system with Hyper-V services installed, connect the exported iSCSI volumes to the machine using iSCSI Initiator.

Open Control Panel > Administrative Tools> iSCSI Initiator

3. Enter the IP address of the appliance in Target and click Quick Connect. 

The available volume targets should be displayed in the popup. 

4. Connect each disk device by clicking Connect.

5. Open Computer Management from Control Panel > Administrative Tools.

6. Select Disk Management. 

Ensure that the connected iSCSI volumes are Offline and not available to the local operating system as mounted volumes.  If necessary, right click the disk and select Offline to dismount each disk.

7. Open Hyper-V Manager. 

From the Action menu select New > Hard Disk

8. Click Next, select VHDX, and click Next again.

9. Select Dynamically Expanding to create a thin provisioned disk (preferred), or Fixed Size to create a thick provisioned disk.  Click Next.

10. Provide a File Name and Location where the disk will be stored and click Next.

11. Choose Copy the contents of the specified physical disk and select the disk to copy. 

Refer to Computer Management > Disk Manager to identify the correct disks. 

PhysicalDrive0 corresponds to Disk 0, etc. 

Click Next.  

12. Verify the summary information presented is correct and click Finish to begin creating the virtual disk image.

A progress bar will display status as the image is written, and the wizard will exit upon completion.

Create a new virtual machine

Once the virtual disks have been created, you may use them to create a new virtual machine instance and boot your protected system. 

When creating the virtual machine, select Use existing disk image and browse to the disk images created in the previous steps.

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