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I have a Windows Image Backup file created from within Windows. However, the Windows installation media refuses to read the drive it's on (USB 3, Win7, doesn't want to work). Instead, I was wondering if I could just use a live Linux session and dd or something.

Aside from trying it, will it work? I don't want to have any hidden errors, even if it does appear to work.

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    You will be unable to use DD to restore a Windows Backup image.
    – Ramhound
    Sep 26, 2017 at 18:45
  • Is there any other utility which can restore it?
    – Aaron Franke
    Sep 26, 2017 at 18:51

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First option to try is to boot a most recent Windows 10 setup disk and see if it recognizes your USB drive. If it works, you can try to restore your image from there.

On Linux you can use libguestfs to mount your image and copy its contents to your hard drive.

To install it, use sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools or corresponding command for your Linux distribution.

The following command will copy the whole partition from VHD to your hard drive: sudo guestfish -a /media/your-usb-drive/your-image.vhd run : download /dev/sda1 /dev/sda3 where dev/sda3 is the target partition to write. Make sure you are not overwriting a wrong partition before you proceed! Also ensure that the target partition is not mounted.

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  • Is there any such utility for windows?
    – Suncatcher
    Apr 21, 2019 at 17:33

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