SUMMARY
Windows Instant Recovery Halted
ISSUE
Purpose
Windows Instant Recovery is in a Halted State
Description
You receive a report or check the status of Windows Instant Recovery (WIR) and note a client is in a halted state.
Cause
There can be numerous causes for a WIR to enter a halted state.
The most common are lack of available WIR storage space, rebooting the appliance unexpectedly while WIR recovery is in process, or a WIR restore process that exceeds 24 hours (The Windows PE image used during the restore process reboots automatically every 24 hours due to Microsoft licensing restrictions, restores that take in excess of 24 hours will fail and cause a halted state).
Another common cause is that a new master backup was run for the client. The use of Incremental Forever file level backups is required for use with WinIR.
Moving a client in and out of Live mode will also halt the system. live mode should only be used when required, Audit mode should be used for testing. If Live mode is activated, the IR client will need to be recreated.
A final common change is when a disk is added, removed, or has it's size changed on the original client. I some cases, external storage added temporarily may have been included in a backup, or storage may have unexpectedly gone offline and remained down through a backup period. We will identify this as a platform change and require the IR image to be rebuilt.
Resolution
A halted client cannot be recovered back to an idle state. This is a critical failure or reset condition. The recovery procedure for WIR requires the WIR guest to be torn down and rebuilt. Delete the WIR guest and create it again. If the issue persists frequently, and Incremental Forever scheudles are being used, or if you would like the WIR issue diagnosed more in detail, check the log files for the WIR process.
Third-Party Sources