About restoring a computer from a remote location by using LightsOut Restore

Last published : Apr 02, 2026
Arctera System Recovery LightsOut Restore lets administrators restore a computer from a remote location. It works regardless of the state of the computer provided that its file system is intact.
For example, suppose you are on vacation in the Bahamas and a computer on your network in Vancouver goes down. You can connect to the computer from your remote location by using your server's remote connection capabilities. You can remotely access a Arctera System Recovery Disk to start the computer in the recovery environment. You can then use the Arctera System Recovery Disk to restore files or an entire system partition.
LightsOut Restore installs a custom version of a Arctera System Recovery Disk directly to the file system on the system partition. It then places a Arctera System Recovery Disk boot option in the Windows boot menu. Whenever the boot menu option is selected, the computer boots directly into the Arctera System Recovery Disk. It uses the files that are installed on the system partition.
LightsOut Restore uses the Windows boot menu, and hardware devices such as RILO and DRAC. These features combine to let an administrator remotely control a system during the boot process.
After you configure LightsOut Restore and add the boot menu option, you can use a hardware device to remotely connect to the system. After you connect, you can turn on or reboot the system into theArctera System Recovery Disk.
Note: If you use Microsoft BitLocker to secure the data on a drive, be aware that LightsOut Restore does not work on BitLocked drives. Therefore, if you "BitLock" your system drive, you cannot recover the drive using LightsOut Restore.