How to restore VHD file backup?

Question

orignal title: VHD file?

I did my first system backup using the back up and restore in Windows 7.  I had it copy the file to my external hardrive.  It comes up as a .VHD file.  How do I open that?  I tried to use the restore option but it says there is no backup to restore. Is it because the backup was not completed due to some files being skipped?  I do see the large .vhd file on my external harddrive.

Answer 1

Hi Ronda,

The reason why you’ve a VHD file is because you’ve created a system image backup. A system image includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. You can use a system image to restore the contents of your computer if your hard drive or computer ever stops working. When you restore your computer from a system image, it is a complete restoration; you can't choose individual items to restore, and all of your current programs, system settings, and files are replaced.

You wouldn’t be able to restore VHD files using backup and restore center. You can mount the image by following the steps below.

Method 1: Steps to mount VHD files in Windows 7

a.    Open Start Menu, right-click on Computer and click Manage.

b.    Click on Disk Management.

c.    Click Action -> Attach VHD and specify the external hard disk location on your computer.

Check out the section in the link below about how to e****xtract files from a system image (advanced)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2009/11/12/recovering-your-files-in-windows-7.aspx

Method 2: How to restore your computer from a system image backup

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup

For more information about system image backup, you can visit the link below

Learn more about system image backup

http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2009/10/31/learn-more-about-system-image-backup.aspx 

Backup and restore: frequently asked questions

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Back-up-and-restore-frequently-asked-questions

Hope this information is helpful.

Mouneshwar R – Microsoft Support

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Answer 2

Hi Ronda,

I guess you’ve selected the recovery partition instead of selecting the drive where you made the backup and that is when you receive this error message. I would suggest you to select the drive where the VHD file is and not the recovery partition which is basically used to restore the computer to its default factory settings. Once you select the right drive follow the steps as mentioned earlier.

Hope this information is helpful and let me know if you need any further assistance.

Mouneshwar R – Microsoft Support

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Answer 3

Mouneshwar:

There is no way to truly convey how appreciative I am for your answer.

We had a Windows 2008 Server doing system backups to a remote drive.  During one of the backup processes the machine experienced a drive failure.

When we rebuilt the machine we tried to recover from the backup.  Unfortunately, Windows said that it did not recognize it as a windows backup file.

Following your directions to mount the VHD, we were able to recover everything from the backup.

Thank you for extremely clear and helpful information.

Answer 4

Hi there, we did a vhd backup on an external drive on our old computer using windows vista.  its now died - is it possible to restore the files on our new computer using windows 7 without having to reformat the new computer totally?

Answer 5

Thanks for the answer.. This helped me a lot. I lost my laptop .. all i was worrying was about the data.. so now after backing up its like jsut the device is lost.. all the data is back now. i was bout to delete these files all the 200GB .. but after reading this i mountes as explined and i was able to recover all my data.. this is good.. and great thanks for the answer.!