About selecting VMware virtual resources for restore

You can restore virtual machine data in the following ways:

• You can restore a complete virtual machine, or its Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) file, for disaster recovery purposes.

• You can restore individual files or folders that were backed up from inside the VMDK file, if you selected the Granular Recovery Technology option for the backup job.

Figure: Restore view of VMware Virtual Machines (VM)

In the restore view, a virtual machine that was enabled to use Granular Recovery Technology appears under its physical network or netbios name. If you expand the network name, then individual drives, files, and folders appear.

Virtual machines also appear in the Restore view under VMware VirtualCenter and ESX Servers. Under VMware VirtualCenter and ESX Servers, the virtual machines appear by their VirtualCenter display name, or the name that you provided for the virtual machine during its creation. If you expand the display name for a VM, its contents appear. If you select the VM by its display name, you can recover the entire VM and its VMDK files.