Complete DR restore -- possible with B&R?

So we just recently replaced nearly our entire environment which included a new backup software, storage, etc. Since we're in tornado country (and recently had several very close over the past week or two) we decided to make sure we could recover from a complete disaster, should one arise.

Essentially we have a single ESXi (licensed w/ Essentials) host running connected to our SAN over iSCSI. The backup server runs as a VM on the host server and connects, over iSCSI, to another storage device as a regular iSCSI mount in Windows. Currently we are backing up several VMs on this box with B&R Virtual Edition and all has been going well. The same server also runs as a storage node with deduplication. I realize it isn't the best setup but like I said, it is what we have for the time being. So far performance hasn't been hit yet.

The initial thought process was that as long as we have our backup storage device and the restore CD then we'd be set. All we would need to do is build up a quick ESXi server and iSCSI network and we could get things rolling again. By booting off the restore CD we could restore the VM from the vault back to our new ESXi server and get it all back online. However, this doesn't seem to hold true as I'm finding out.

In my testing I took a simple laptop and booted up the restore CD -- this was hooked up via gigabit switch to our backup storage device. I was able to successfully mount the iSCSI volume on the backup device and could see the Windows directory where the vault was stored (D:\vault\ in this case). So for grins I went to browse the vault -- this is where sadness began. It shows that I have 6 archives but 0 backups. Obviously my testing quickly stopped right there and I turned to the forums.

Since we are using the Storage Node in Acronis with a managed/deduped vault... do I need to essentially build up a brand new backup server before I can do ANYTHING with my backups? If so... this really sucks as this wasn't what was sold to us by Acronis.

Alternatively... has anyone else attempted the same kind of testing and come up with a workable solution? I'd love to hear it... Obviously the user guide assumes the backup server never fails as I couldn't find a single reference to restoring the backup server if it crashes (at least another software company mentions this in theirs... won't name names).

Still holding out hope...
Kelly