Windows 10: Recover Folders of Files from System Image?

It looks like I have made an error by creating a System Image instead of Backing Up my folders and files. I admit to being a bit confused as to what the difference is (or was) between the two.

Following a BSoD (although I could access Advanced Options, and could boot up via Start Up Settins, option 7) my Windows 10 Pro OS had quite a few errors that were taking too long to fix (Office 365 programs would not function, error codes etc).

I created an System Image folder (WindowsImageBackup) on an external hard drive, 5 days ago, and finally re-installed Windows 10 Pro yesterday.

Having just read the "How to Create a System Image in Windows 10" tutorial, in this forum:
"When you restore your computer from a system image it is a complete restoration, you cannot choose individual items to restore and all of your current programs, system settings, and files are replaced with the contents of the system image."

I thought I would check with Tenforums first, after looking at:

How to access a system image and restore individual files using Windows 10's native VHD support - TechRepublic

The webpage mentions that specific files can be retrieved by using Windows 10's native VHD support, although the author loses me as I read through (and try to make sense of) it.

Is there a way to retrieve folders and files from a System Image?
The System Image was made when the Win 10 Pro OS had errors with it, so I presume these errors would return, if I restored the image.

Maybe there is a link to a similar question in this forum?

Thanks in advance.
Geoff.

:)

 

fresh paint

If you need to recover individual files from your old Windows installation, you can
recover them from the Windows.old folder. This should just be a matter of opening the File Explorer window, accessing the Windows.old folder at C:\Windows.old, and browsing your file system. Your personal files will be located
under C:\Windows.old\Users\NAME.

 

lost pictures

A recovery disk is normally only intended for reinstalling the operating system. It would not keep a backup your files.

You could check Windows.old to see if the pictures are there:

Recover personal files from the Windows.old Folder such as Documents Pictures and
Windows Live Mail Emails in Windows 10

 

Better than that, there's a whole Tutorial on it.
VHD or VHDX File - Mount or Unmount in Windows 10

Once you have mounted the .vhdx file from the WindowsImageBackup folder (it's a couple of folders down) then you get a new drive letter in File explorer and you can explore the virtual drive as you wish. There's a .vhdx file for each partition in the system image, most likely the largest one is for your C: drive (the small ones are the system and recovery partitions).

 

Looks great, hopefully it is fool-proof!
Would you suggest Option 1, 2 or 3?

 

I'd go for Option 2, you can chose to mount it 'read-only' with that method - even more fool-proof *Smile

 

Great. Thanks. Will look at, in a few minutes.

 

Hi. I (think) have mounted the external hard drive, which was given the drive letter "G". There was a choice of three .vhdx files, so I chose the largest one (268 GB) but the disk icon it is not highlighted in blue (see first pic) and I cannot access folders/files (see second pic).

How should I proceed?

 

Is your 'Disk 3 (basic, 452.24GB, Read-Only)' the virtual drive you have mounted? Is Disk 4 another one?

Note that Disk Management shows your Disk 3 has a name (Acer) but doesn't have a drive letter yet. In order to assign it a drive letter using Disk Management it would have to be mounted as read/write, mounted read-only those options are greyed-out. To keep it mounted as read-only but still be able to assign it a drive letter, mount it using Disk Management then use DISKPART from a 'Command Prompt (Admin)'.

In the following example I have mounted a vhdx image of my recovery partition as read-only. It has no drive letter. The partition I want to give a letter is partition 2 on disk 2. Your disk/partition numbers will be different, use Diskpart's LIST DISK and LIST PARTITION commands to find the numbers you should use.


Code: C:\WINDOWS\system32>DISKPART Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0 Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: TOSH-L750 DISKPART> LIST DISK Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 465 GB 0 B Disk 1 Online 231 GB 19 MB * Disk 2 Online 548 MB 115 MB * DISKPART> SELECT DISK 2 Disk 2 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> LIST PART Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Reserved 32 MB 17 KB Partition 2 Primary 400 MB 32 MB DISKPART> SELECT PART 2 Partition 2 is now the selected partition. DISKPART> ASSIGN LETTER=S DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point. DISKPART>[/quote] Once your virtual drive has a letter it can be accessed in File Manager. To dismount it right-click on it in 'This PC' and select Eject. The drive letter you assigned should be remembered and allocated to it next time you mount it.

EDIT: I suspect your mounted vhdx is actually drive 4, as it shows some unallocated space (the black part) as do all the vhdx files I have tried mounting.

 

I mounted the largest-sized .vhdx file shown in Pic 4 AttachVHD.
I have re-started computer since I could not get the right-click, Eject option.
Attached is also:

• 2 DiskManPC only which shows Disk Management without externak hard drive connected.
• 3 Ext HDD Dir showing the directory structure of the external hard drive which contains the WindowsImageBackup directory
• 5 DiskManVHD which shows the Disk Management screen following the mount.

I don't know what Acer is in 5 DiskManVHD. I presumed the (G) drive was the drive I wanted. My laptop is an Acer Aspire.

 

I have to leave, for a few hours. Thanks for your continued support. Geoff.

 

Good, looks like you are almost there.

In your Disk Management image above, Disk 0 is your PC's hard drive, Disk 2 is your external hard drive G: containing the WindowsImageBackup folder and Disk 3 looks like a successfully mounted vhdx file from your G: drive.

Disk 3's 'Acer' partition has no drive letter so you can't see it in File Explorer yet. This time it hasn't been mounted as read-only, so in Disk Management you can right-click on the 'Acer' partition and use 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...' to give it one. Then you will be able to use File Explorer to retrieve files from it. The name Acer looks like something Backup and Restore included when making the system image, it's almost certainly the saved image of you old C: drive.

If you want to mount it read-only you will need to use DISKPART to assign a drive letter (see my earlier post) because the 'Change Drive Letter....' option will be greyed-out in Disk Manager for read-only drives.

 

Thanks.
I assigned a drive letter by right-clicking Acer, as you suggested, but I am unable to access the "username" folder (see Pic).
Sorry to have to ask, for each step of the way!
I can access the subfolders and files under the Public folder but not my own files.

I also don't understand the significance of opening the vhdx read-only - is it better to open read-only? My aim is to copy the Geoff Hunter folder (and everything underneath it) over to my computer - is this possible?

When I click Continue, the address bar fills with green, very slowly, and seems to stop near the end, so I cancelled it.

 

It's 'permissions'. The user folders on that image only have read permissions for the accounts that existed on the system that was backed up. To your PC these are unknown accounts, hence you don't have access. The quickest way to get access to that folder and all the files and folders it contains is to take ownership of the 'Geoff Hunter' folder. Right-click on it, select Properties and the Security tab. Make sure you tick the 'Replace owner of subcontainers and objects' box - as described in Option 4 of this Tutorial.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...html#option4s4

If there are a lot of files and folders it may take some time to process them all.

That's just me being ultra-cautious. When I mount my images I don't want to accidentally delete something as I may wish to restore the image some time later. All my images are of this PC, so I already have the permissions I need. Your image is of a different PC, in this case you'll have to mount it read/write in order to change ownership/permissions.

 

As a point of clarification - user accounts get unique SIDs (like a serial number for that user account). Unless you are part of a domain network controlled by a domain controller, the user account on each computer will have a different SID even though the username/password or even the Microsoft Account is the same.

On computer A, user account L: John@outlook.com will have a different SID than L: John@outlook.com on Computer B. Permissions are set using the SIDs, not account names so that is why the permissions are different on the backup image from a different computer even though the account username is the same.