New
#100
Forget copying it. We're just trying to mount it, but you may need to open the WindowsBackupImage folder it's in first.
Yep, browse to location, but we can forget that now since you said you are able to mount the VHD.
Are you able to manually assign a drive letter to the mounted VHD?
Yeah I was just not familiar with the VHD system + I think it is quite confusing that it doesn't automatically assign a drive letter when in the tutorial you linked there wasn't a step about assigning drive letters but now I've got it sorted it out. I backed up my game and OS drive that's why it was so big..
Yeah, sometimes it won't automatically assign a drive letter for whatever reason.
I'm glad you got it sorted though.
Differentials may be a bit less space efficient, but they are safer.
This is picking up from something I commented on a few weeks ago, namely that I suspected W10 disk imaging created either Incremental or differential backups.
I've noticed that every time I run the backup utility I see a small but consistent increase in the backup image folder size... well actually its the other way around, what I see is a decrease in free space on the drive holding the backup. I've been puzzling over what has been going on, and examining the WindowsImageBackup folder gives little clue.
You can see what I mean here as this shows the free space dropping after running the backup. Look at partition Y
And after running,
And these the main contents of the folder. Nothing much changes.
And after another backup,
When you go into the recovery console you are only offered the 'latest' backup but if you carry on through the options and choose to select another image then initially you still only see the latest version. However if now select that and continue then it expands into all the images made prior to the latest.
So the big question (s)
Are these Incrementals or are they Differentials ?
And importantly... does the integrity of the latest backup rely on the others being OK ? Its very odd because there are no real clues as to how this is all carried out. There is no chain of backups visible as there would be with say Acronis. I've also un hidden protected files and still see nothing to account for the drop in free space.
Another little puzzle with Windows backup and restore that I have noticed. I have two PC's one running W10 x86 and the other W10x64. The last few days have also seen me clean install W10 x64 onto a friends laptop.
Both x64 installs seem to timestamp the backups with an incorrect time. If you look at the screen shot in the above post you can see it says GMT 00:00 which is correct. That was the 32 bit install. Both x64 installs list the backups as GMT -08:00 hours. Not an issue in practice but a little odd non the less.