4 Ways to Mount Windows System Image Backup VHD/VHDX File
About VHD & VHDX
VHD, short of Virtual Hard Disk, is a file format that represents a virtual hard disk drive. If you create Windows image backup using Backup and Restore, you now get Windows backup to VHD and you will get a WindowsImageBackup folder in the destination, and the path is just like:\WindowsImageBackup\computer name\Backup YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS. There can be multiple. VHD files and several .xml files. How many VHD files mean that you have how many disks or partitions.
VHDX (Virtual Hard Disk V2) is the successor format to VHD. Now disk images use VHDX format instead of VHD because of the difference between VHD and VHDX: capacity limit. VHD is limited up to 2 TB while the VHDX is limited up to 64 TB. You can mount VHDX just like mounting VHD.
Sometimes, you have to mount the VHD or VHDX file to access files from the backup, what should you do? There are 4 ways included in this article for you.
- Way 1. Mount Windows image backup VHD with Disk Management
- Way 2. Powershell Mount VHD/VHDX
- Way 3. Mount VHD/VHDX file with Command Prompt
- Way 4. Mount Windows image backup VHD with Qiling Disk Master
Way 1. Mount Windows image backup VHD with Disk Management
Here is the guide to mount and unmount VHD or VHDX file with Disk Management:
Mount VHD/VHDX
Mount Windows image backup with Windows Disk Management listed below.
1. Right click This PC -> Manage, select Disk Management, or you can open the Disk Management by pressing Win+X (Win10), select Disk Management.
2. Click Action, select Attach VHD.
3. Then, locate the Windows system image VHD/VHDX file by clicking Browse and hitting OK.
4. After the file is attached, you will find the partitions or disk did not show in File Explorer but only visible in Disk Management. Now, what you should do is assign drive letter for the partitions on the mounted disk: Right click the partition > Change Drive Letter and Path... > Add... > Choose a drive letter > OK.
Now, you could browse files, copy files, drag and drop files, recover single or multiple files from your Windows image backup.
Detach VHD/VHDX
1. In Computer Management, click Action > All Tasks > Detach VHD.
2. And then click OK.
Or you could right click the mounted disk, and select Detach VHD. It will execute the detachment immediately.
Note: Detaching VHD or VHDX is a little different in Windows 7. Please do not check the box of “Delete the virtual hard disk file after removing the disk”, or your system image backup will be deleted.
Way 2. Powershell Mount VHD/VHDX
Besides, you could use the Mount-VHD command to mount one or more Windows image backup VHD or VHDX files in Hyper-V, Windows Server 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022.
The syntax of Mount-VHD is listed here:
Mount-VHD [-Path] [-NoDriveLetter] [-ReadOnly] [-SnapshotId ] [-Passthru] [-CimSession ] [-ComputerName ] [-Credential ] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [(CommonParameters)]
For example, mount the VHDX file located in \\192.168.0.230\sharefolder\WindowsImageBackup\DESKTOP-EL3UFCG\Backup 2020-12-15 075201\10ae79f1-3117-4168-b159-19790f1113bf.vhdx, please input the command:
Mount-VHD -path \\192.168.0.230\sharefolder\WindowsImageBackup\DESKTOP-EL3UFCG\Backup 2020-12-15 075201\10ae79f1-3117-4168-b159-19790f1113bf.vhdx
Here is the detach VHD or VHDX command:
Dismount-VHD –Path "[location of vhd]"
For example:
Dismount-VHD \\192.168.0.230\sharefolder\WindowsImageBackup\DESKTOP-EL3UFCG\Backup 2020-12-15 075201\10ae79f1-3117-4168-b159-19790f1113bf.vhdx
Sometimes, you will get the error: The term 'Mount-VHD' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. To fix it, you have to install Hyper-V first.
Way 3. Mount VHD/VHDX file with Command Prompt
Run the following commands from an elevated command:
- diskpart
- select vdisk file="D:\WindowsImageBackup\DESKTOP-EL3UFCG\Backup 2020-12-15 075201\10ae79f1-3117-4168-b159-19790f1113bf.vhdx"
- attach vdisk
And you could unmount the VHD or VHDX file with the command:
- diskpart
- select vdisk file="D:\WindowsImageBackup\DESKTOP-EL3UFCG\Backup 2020-12-15 075201\10ae79f1-3117-4168-b159-19790f1113bf.vhdx"
- detach vdisk
However, you might encounter the mount VHD error like: Sorry, there was a problem mounting the file. Or you don’t have permission to mount the file. The fix is to copy the VHD or VHDX file from one location to another, and mount it.
If you still have problems mounting the VHD or VHDX file, please try the next solution.
Way 4. Mount Windows image backup VHD with Qiling Disk Master
Here I will introduce a much easier way to mount Windows system image to VHD in Windows PCs and Servers. That is using the great third party software Qiling Disk Master Server. It is very simple to use this software to create Windows system image, and mount Windows image for browsing or recovering individual files.
What's more, you are allowed to create recovery environment using Qiling Disk Master so that you can backup and restore your computer without booting Windows. Just download it to have a try!
Create Windows system image
Step 1. Install and launch Qiling Disk Master. To mount Windows system image, here you need to create Windows system image backup first. Select System Backup under Backup tab.
Step 2. Then, choose another local partition as destination place to store system backup image. Click Proceed.
Mount system image
Step 1. If you need to mount Windows system image backup, you can select Mount Image under the Backup and recovery tab.
Step 2. Then, select a backup image and select a backup point in the list to explore files on VHD.
Step 3. Here you could assign drive letters for partitions in the image file to explore it in My Computer. Click Proceed.
Step 4. Then, wait till the progress reaches 100%. Click Finish.
After that, you have already finished the job “mount Windows system image backup”. Then you can access the backup image in Windows Explorer and recover specific files from Windows backup.
Unmounting Windows system image backup is also simple with Qiling Disk Master. Click Tools > Explore Image > select the drive letter and click Detach. Or just shut down your computer, and the virtual drives will be automatically detached.
The End
It’s easy to mount the Windows image backup VHD or VHDX file according to the above steps. And Qiling Disk Master is not only a VHD mount tool but also a VHD viewer that can help Windows users backup and restore easily. Besides, you can use it to import/export configuration files to manage your backup tasks, check image, or merge images. It is convenient for Windows users.
If you want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you can pick Qiling Disk Master Technician Plus. With the inbuilt Qiling Image Deploy tool, you are also allowed to deploy/restore system image file on server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over network.
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