This is how to extract files from a Windows 7 full image backup!

[BetaTime]

After lots of research on the Internet, I couldn’t find a straight-forward method of extracting files from a Windows 7 image backup (this is the full backup, not the file and folder backup). I finally got it working without any additional programs! Here are my instructions. Hopefully they can come in handy for when you don’t have any files in Previous Versions, or you don’t have another backup of the file you lost but you have it in the image backup.

 

This procedure may not work with Vista as Windows 7 supports VHD disk mounting through Diskpart. I don’t think Vista does.

 

 

1. You must be logged in as an administrator (such as the first account made on the computer when you installed Windows 7)
   
2. Go to the Start menu > Computer, and go into the drive where you made the image backup
   
3. Right-click the WindowsImageBackup folder and go to Properties
   
4. Go to the Security tab > Advanced > Owner tab > Edit...
   
5. Select your username, and check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects
   
6. "OK" everything and close all windows
   
7. Go back to the drive where you made the image backup, right-click the WindowsImageBackup folder and go to Properties > Security tab > Advanced
   
8. In the Permissions tab click Change Permissions...
   
9. Select your username, click Edit...
   
10. Tick all the Allow boxes then OK
    
11. Tick both bottom boxes then OK
    
12. "OK" everything, close all windows
    
13. UPDATE: And with credit to Proton2's reply below, we need to mount the backup image as a drive. To do this, open the Start? menu, right-click on Computer and select Manage
    
14. In the left pane, under Storage, select Disk Management
    
15. Go to the Action menu, then Attach VHD
    
16. Click Browse..., go into the drive where you made the image backup. Go into to the WindowsImageBackup folder, then the [NAME OF PC] folder, then the Backup [DATE] folder. There should some .VHD files in there. Select the one with the largest file size and click Open, then OK.
    
17. It will now have mounted in Computer as a hard drive. You can browse through it and retrieve your files!
    
18. When finished, we need to dismount the VHD drive. Go back into Disk Management as before, find the drive from charts on the bottom pane (such as Disk 3), right click on where it says the disk name (such as Disk 3) and select Detach, then OK.
    
19. All done. Make a new backup from scratch (delete the old one) if you like since we messed up its permissions.
    

 

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