Netbackup BMR (Bare Metal Restore) fails to install ADK 8.1 while creating the first SRT on a BMR boot server, "Installation of Windows ADK failed to due to network failure"

Problem

Microsoft has removed the link to download ADK 8.1 which is needed as an external component for BMR SRT creation.

Thus Netbackup BMR (Bare Metal Restore) fails to install ADK 8.1 while creating the first SRT on a BMR boot server

Error Message

Cause

ADK 8.1 is no longer available for download from the Microsoft web site. So, if the ADK has not previously been downloaded and is needed to create an SRT, the above error will be encountered when a download attempt is made for the 8.1 ADK

Solution

This is expected to be fixed in Netbackup version 9.1

An EEB is available which directs NetBackup to download a later version of the ADK (10.0) from Microsoft instead:

EEB is available for following versions of Netbackup, kindly contact Netbackup Technical Support.

8.1.1      ET 4039702
8.1.2      ET 4037078
8.2        ET 4035231
8.3.0.1    ET 4036366
9.0        ET 4039700
9.0.0.1    ET 4036367

Download and extract the eeb with -extractonly switch to a temporary directory.

then use the readme:

1. Copy bmrsrtadm.exe and sre-staticfiles.cab in \VERITAS\NetBackup\bin\bmrsrtadm.exe
\VERITAS\NetBackup\BareMetal\Server\Data\sre-staticfiles.cab respectively
2. Remove \VERITAS\NetBackup\BareMetal\Server\Data\sre-staticfiles folder if present
3. Start creating SRT using the boot server assistant.

NOTE:

While the EEB will update netbackup to download the later version of the ADK automatically from the Microsoft website , there may be some cases where the ADK needs to be manually downloaded (e.g. machine does not have internet access)

In these cases, the ADK version downloaded should match that expected by the EEB, namely 1607 which is available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=526740

If a later version is downloaded instead, these may give an error when specified to the SRT wizard, e.g

• 1703 or 1709 – setup appears to complete successful from ADK side, but the SRT wizard displays an error and won’t continue
• 1809 or later – setup fails on launching with error from “OptionId.WindowsPreInstallationEnvironment not available” (as win PE has been removed from version 1809 onwards which is required by BMR)

Related article:

Due to some corruption of Microsoft ADK components the Netbackup BMR (Bare Metal Restore) SRT creation may fail at the time of mounting the .WIM file:

https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/article.100050584.html