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When I try to back up a Windows EFS encrypted folder on a physical server to an Azure Recovery Services Vault the file size is modified upon recovery and the files cannot be opened (are unrecognizable). Am I doing something wrong or is this simply not possible?

To be a bit more specific, I successfully backed up, mounted and restored an EFS encrypted folder with the image of a cat in it. The after version cannot be opened even if it is restored to the original folder. Even though it is 18,570 bytes larger, the cat is gone.

The question is do I have to do something special to make this work? Can the MARS agent detect the fact that the file is encrypted and save the raw file as-is?

I tried this more than once and I get the same outcome whether or not I run the backup as the EFS agent.

Update: If I decrypt the cat-containing folder and repeat the same process (i.e. Backup Now to the same repository, just a different snapshot) the recovery is successful.

saminpa
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1 Answers1

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All credit to Edwin Cruz of Tek Experts who was assigned this question as a ticket after I signed up for tech support on Azure, but for anyone else who runs into this problem:

In what seems obvious in retrospect, the devil is in the options - if you follow the default option of mounting the recovery volume to restore files you are trying to break the encryption which doesn't work. You need to select restore 'Volume' not 'Individual Files and Folders' (see image). That gives you options such as preserving ACLs and the destination, including the original destination while preserving existing files. Works like a charm unlike certain other, ahem, tools, designed only for linux...

enter image description here

saminpa
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