Windows Tip: Restoring individual files from a CompletePC Backup
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Windows Vista has a new backup feature called CompletePC Backup that backs up everything on your computer in one easy step. And you can back up everything either to another hard drive such as a removable USB drive or DVD. Then later if you need to restore your computer due to instability or corruption, you can boot from your Windows Vista product DVD while holding down F8 to start the Windows Recovery Environment, select the Windows CompletePC Backup option when it is displayed, and follow the prompts to restore your system from your previous backup to your external drive or DVD.
When you create a backup using CompletePC Backup however, the wizard says the backup can only be used to restore the entire system and that you can't use it to restore individual files. Well that's not true!
It turns out that the format of a backup made using CompletePC Backup is actually the same virtual hard drive (.vhd) file format used by Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Virtual PC! Here's what you do using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (still in beta):
1. Create a new virtual machine and install Windows Vista on it as a guest OS (an existing VM with Windows XP will also do fine).
2. Use the vhdmount command to mount your .vhd file as an additional drive for your guest OS.
3. Now from within your guest OS, use Windows Explorer to find the file you want to restore.
If you're running an earlier version of Virtual Server (or Virtual PC), you can copy the .vhd backup file to your host OS, add it as a second drive to your guest OS, start your guest OS, and use Windows Explorer to find the file you want to restore.
Virtualization just keeps getting better and better!
ITworld.com
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