Mount System Image Backup to Extract Single File in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7

Why Mount Backup Image?

Creating Windows system backup image is the best solution to keep your computer safe. System backup images are used to restore your whole system and allow you to repair the failures on hard drives. But how to restore a single file from a system backup image? The direct way is to mount Windows backup image to extract individual files.

However, Windows Backup and Restore doesn't provide a way to restore individual files from system image backup. Hence, you can try to use some third-party backup software to solve the issue easily.

Best Windows Image Mount Tool - AOMEI Backupper Professional

As the best backup software, AOMEI Backupper Professional could help you mount the Windows backup image to a virtual partition and extract the individual files easily. The mounted drive is read-only to keep your data safe and you can’t change anything with the virtual drive. All you can do with the read-only virtual partition is to copy files out of it.

Please note AOMEI Backupper can only mount the backup image created by itself. It offers four backup types - System Backup, Disk Backup, Partition Backup and File Backup. Mounting image backup is available for the first three backup types. If you use the "Explore Image" feature to mount a file backup, it will prompt you to choose a destination, and extract all the files and folders to the destination.

Now download the professional Windows image mounting software, and install it on your PC. 

How to Create a Windows 10 System Image Backup

AOMEI Backupper Professional is designed for home users, easy and automatic. Follow the steps below to create a system backup image easily:

1. Run AOMEI Backupper. Click Backup > System Backup.

2. The system and boot partitions are selected by default as the source data. Select a destination for your Windows 10 system image file.

3. Enable Schedule Backup below and select Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers or USB plug in based on your needs. And the last one is recommended if you want to copy files to USB automatically when it's connected.

★Tips:

💛 To prevent backup disk full at the beginning, you need to enable Backup Scheme. You can set Incremental or Differential Backup, or By quantity, By time, By daily/weekly/monthly, or By space Automatic Backup Cleanup.

💛 You can also set image file compression, email notification and so on in the Options.

 4. Press Start Backup >> to create a Windows 10 system image backup automatically.

Using this way to create a Windows 10 system image backup will save a lot of disk space because the incremental backups occupy the least space.

How to Mount Windows 10 System Image Backup

Now, you could mount Windows image backup. The following step-by-step guide shows you how to mount a Windows image backup and copy individual files directly.

Step 1. Select Explore Image under the Tools column to mount backup image.

Step 2. Select the Windows 10 system backup image containing the files you want to copy from the list and click Next >> to continue.

Step 3. Select a backup time point to explore and copy, and click Next >>. Choose the right time point because it may include full backup, incremental backup and differential backup.

Step 4. Tick the checkbox before the system partition that contains the files you want and choose a drive letter for it to assign drive letter. Then, click Next >> to perform the extraction.

Step 5. Wait for a few seconds to complete. You can view all the files and folders in the virtual drive (the partition you just assigned drive letter). And then you could copy the files you need to another place.

★Notes:
◉ If the selected files are encrypted, you need to type in the password you set before to continue the process.
◉ If you don't detach the virtual drive after copying needed files, it will automatically be detached at the next computer startup.

Conclusion

Mounting backup image to extract individual files is easy for AOMEI Backupper while Windows Backup and Restore doesn't support doing this.

AOMEI Backupper is not only a Windows backup software, but also a disk cloning software. You can use it to clone hard drive to SSD, replace old smaller HDD with new larger one and migrate Windows 10 to M.2 SSD, etc.

For server users, please try AOMEI Backupper Server; for IT Technicians, please try AOMEI Backupper Technician Plus.