File-Level Recovery Fails on Windows

Product version: 11.0.3+

Last modified: 13 October 2025

Problem

File-Level Recovery (FLR) for VMs that use ReFS or NTFS partitions fails if the Windows Data Deduplication feature is not enabled on the proxy Transporter.

Background

In the File-level, Object-level, and Universal object recovery scenarios NAKIVO Backup & Replication relies on the Windows OS to mount and read the ReFS and NTFS file systems. If a recovered volume contains files marked with the Reparse Point (L) attribute, the Windows Data Deduplication feature must be installed on the Transporter host that mounts the backup data.

Without this feature, such files may fail to recover correctly or be excluded from the output archive.

Solution

Do the following to solve the issue:

  1. Enable the Windows Data Deduplication feature on the Transporter host that mounts backup data by running the following command:

    dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:dedup-core /all

    Refer to Install and enable Data Deduplication for more details.

  2. Perform the Full VM Recovery to the original VM.

  3. If it fails, use Flash Boot as an alternative method.