Provided herein are systems and methodologies for bare metal machine restoration of a client computing environment over a network-based backup system. System recovery can be performed by performing a network boot from a predetermined server or set of servers on the Internet and/or an associated local network, followed by retrieving information relating to an operating system and/or environment of a system being recovered, such as incremental or full operating system images. Upon retrieval of information, the information can be used to conduct a full restore of the operating environment of the computing device. Additionally, a user can restore personal or other system data following rebuilding of the system operating environment. A cloud-based structure is provided herein as well as a hybrid peer-to-peer/cloud-based structure, wherein information used in a restore can be obtained from a global network location (e.g., cloud server(s)) and/or from one or more local peers.