Restore to an external drive

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Sunlion70822

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May 7, 2017
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Can I restore a system image backup ONTO an external drive? I did a drag-and-drop backup of data files only, but one is missing. I don't want to restore the whole thing, but thought maybe I could restore an earlier system image backup onto an external drive, find my missing file, and put it on the new hard drive.
 
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gardenman
It's easier to post the image to a image hosting site like https://postimage.io/ and then link to it.

I really have no clue what you have going on.. with the disks.. and I'm not sure if a screen shot will help or not, but it might. You might want to go back into Disk Management and detach all of the VHDs to see if you can get that straightened out.

I also read today that 7-Zip will open VHD files. This would be much much easier than trying to attach the file(s) in Disk Management. If you don't have 7-Zip installed, I recommend downloading it and trying it out. You can even associate VHD files with it and open them by double clicking on them.
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Hi, I'm not sure what type of backup you have. You said you have a system image, then you said you did a drag-and-drop backup. You also didn't state what software you used to make the backup. And what file format the backup is (.VHD files)?

If you used Windows 7 Backup & Restore (in Control panel of Windows 10) to make a system backup, see if this helps:
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/34630/how-to-recover-specific-files-from-a-windows-system-image/
This is for an older Windows, but the only real change for Win10 would be to right click on This PC on your desktop and choose Manage. You can access Disk Management from there.

Let me know if this works out.
 
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Hi, gardenman,
Thanks for your quick reply. Sorry for my confusing post. I had an earlier system image backup on my external hard drive. A couple days ago, I was advised NOT to do that again, so I did the drag-and-drop thing. But I am missing a bunch of stuff so I thought that if I could restore the whole thing on another external, temporarily, I could get the missing files and bring them into the new setup. But I wasn't sure whether one could put a whole OS plus all the data files and folders on the external. The backup was done using windows, onto a Seagate Backup Plus external drive, 1 terabyte
 
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Maybe it's still unclear. The Windowsimage file is still there. I also have the drang&drop folder, which is missing some critical data and image files. Many of them will be in the Windowsimage backup. But I can't get to them without restoring the Windowsimage backup
 
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It's normal to make a system backup and save it to a external hard drive, so whoever told you that's not a good idea, was wrong. And by backup, I do mean using a program such as Windows Backup & Restore, not just copying files.

Ok, I understand that you want some missing files that are probably in your System Backup, but are not in the Drag&Drop backup.

I'm not sure if Windows Restore will allow you to Restore the full system to an external drive or not. I'm pretty sure that I have read somewhere that it will only allow you restore to the original drives. It's best if you can browse the system image backup and just copy files from it.

Did you try to mount the backup as stated on this page?
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/34630/how-to-recover-specific-files-from-a-windows-system-image/
That's what I would try first, assuming the files are .VHD files. (I personally have never got that Windows Backup & Restore working correctly, I use another program so I don't know if its VHD files or not.)

Right click on "This PC" and choose Manage.
In the Computer Management window, click on Disk Management. (Give it a minute to load).
Right click on Disk Management and choose Attach VHD.
Choose the VHD from your previous system backup.

If it's successfully, you should be able to open "This PC" and you will see a new drive (virtual drive). It will be something like Drive E or Drive G. Open it and you should be able to browse the files from your system backup and even copy them to your desktop.

I am assuming all of this as I have not done it, like I said I had problems with that backup before so I don't use it.

Let me know if this helps or not, or give me specific questions on where you are getting stuck.
 
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I'm sorry it sounds so confusing. Maybe this video will help... when you decide to give a try. Skip up in the video to about 1:32. It shows a different way to get to Disk Management than I stated above, but it's the same thing.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCXpAtay82I"][/video]
Let me know how it turns out when you try it. Good luck.
 
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Ok, that was working very well! I actually had opened and copied a number of files. But then I clicked off the list that was generated when I had selected the VHD folder to open, and it went away (instead of just minimizing, as I expected). Now I can't get it to open again. I even disconnected the external drive and shut down the computer, but when I turned it back on and went through the same steps as before (computer mgmt, disk mgmt, etc), instead of opening the larger of the two VHD files, the message was that the files were already attached. But WHERE?
 
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Try opening "This PC" on the desktop and see if there is a new drive in there. There should be, and that is actually your backup image.

If not, go back into Disk Management and right click on the drive where the VHD file is and choose Open or Explore.

If that doesn't work, look at the bottom of this page. It shows you how to Disconnect the backup image under Disconnect VHD. Disconnect the backup image, then re-connect to it by doing what we did above.
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/34630/how-to-recover-specific-files-from-a-windows-system-image/
See the Detach VHD below. Use that, then re-add it again.
WARNING: Do NOT choose the option to delete the Virtual Hard Drive after removing.
nr3Nq.png
 
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Sigh.... I'm am sorry to bother you again. I left my computer on all night so I wouldn't lose anything I'd achieved thus far. But evidently the disk management function "timed out" or something. Starting over, I did detach the VHD, but when I try to reattach, the backup folder goes instead to the "recovery" (F) drive where there are two folders, Logs and Recovery. Logs contains one file, winrelauncher.exe, which is a data file. The Recovery file is empty. In other words, I can't seem to open the backup file with the 500+ folders that I was working with last night. I've removed the external drive, then reconnected, and shut-down/restarted several times, but I get the same result every time.
 
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That's weird and something I wasn't expecting. Lets first verify that the backup is still there and OK. Reconnect the drive (to the PC, not Disk Management) and use Windows Explorer to browse the files on it. Make sure that the VHD files are still in the image backup folder. If they are, then everything is still there and safe. If not, then they have been deleted some way or another and that's not good news. Keep in mind that above I warned you not to check that box to delete the VHD files when detaching. I hope you didn't accidentally click that box. Be sure not to save anything to that drive for the time.

I wish I knew the exact timeout error message you got. I have tried to look it up and found nothing. I also wouldn't think that a drive timing out would delete any files on it.

Let me know if the VHD files are still there or not (by using Windows Explorer) and what size they are. They should be GBs, huge files. Start by opening "This PC" on your desktop and just browse to where the backup is.

If they are not there, then there is a small chance that you can recover the files using some type of data recovery software as long as you haven't copied any new files or written any new data to the drive. Lets hope we don't have to go down that road though.
 
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I didn't actually get a time-out error, but the screen I had been working with was gone, and the one prior to it was there. [I assumed it just got tired of waiting and left 🙂 ]
The VHD files in question are still on the external drive, and the larger one is 7+ GB. That is definitely the one I was working from last night -- and for about 5 minutes this morning. But then I clicked off that screen, and when I went back to it -- not there.

The Windowsimagebackup file is located on the external (D) drive, and I can click through to "laptop - Backup 1-14-2016 - and then the two very large files. One is almost a GB and the other is the 7+ GB one. Clicking on the larger one, it takes me to the empty Recovery files I mentioned before instead of just opening the 7GB folder. Browsing MY PC, I see that there is a G drive (not there earlier!), identified as as OS. But clicking through on that drive, I see nothing familiar.

I did not delete the files, nor have I written anything to the drive. Things were going SO WELL last night!
 
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OK, so I think you are safe... meaning that the files are still there and are in good condition. The thing that I don't know is what exactly is going on with your PC and why you are having trouble accessing the files again.

Are you sure you are browsing to the correct folder where the VHD files are? Or will it not let you change to the folder where the VHD files are? Also it seems as if the VHD files may already be attached. Look in "This PC" and look at each of the new drives listed in there to see if one of them is your backup.

Don't double click on the VHD files, I'm not sure what exactly that does on your PC (it depends on what program is associated with the files). We only want to use Disk Management to add the VHD files and then Explorer (This PC) to access them through the virtual drive that we create when adding them.

Here's another idea: Go back into Disk Management and Detach all VHD files once again. Be sure not to delete anything if asked. Also open "This PC" on your desktop and for each one of the new drives (since we started adding the VHD files), right click on them and choose Eject. Also eject the external drive with the backup. Physically disconnect the external drive. Reboot. This will hopefully reset everything back to how it was before we started. Once booted back up, reconnect the external disk and try to re-add the VHD files in Disk Management once again.
 
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Ok, I did detach the VHD from both the F and G drives. I did not delete any files. Then (and several times previously) I physically removed the Seagate external HD, turned off the laptop, and waited a few minutes. I tried turning on the computer, then plugging in the external; I also tried turning on the computer with the external already connected.

I browsed the PC for the windowsimagebackup but it is not there. I find it only in the external HD "D" . Last night, I was able to follow the directions in the very helpful link you sent, and go to the 7GB backup file. Today, following that same process, I get the empty F recovery drive instead of the files I need. The F drive showed up in the Disk Management window last night, but I wasn't consistently taken there. Today, that is the only destination.

I can't figure out what (if anything) I've done differently.
 
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Looking again carefully at the link's directions and the results, the missing component seems to be that the VHD files are allegedly attached to the F drive, but they are not showing up. I draw this conclusion because right-clicking on the F drive brings up the option to "detach" the VHD. Clicking "detach" doesn't seem to do anything.
 
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Sorry for the late reply. Tomorrow is Windows Update day and I wanted to get a good system backup in first.

Try this, first Detach the VHD files again. Now add them again, but be sure that the "Read Only" box is NOT checked. [Here] is why. Someone else was having this type of problem and that might help.

mount_vhd6.jpg
From Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management, when you right-click and click Attach VHD, the dialog box that comes up has a check box for Read-only. If you check this box and try to mount the "Drive" it comes up as a blank volume. If you do not have this box checked, it will successfully mount the VHD.
Click to expand...
 
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