How to Extract and Restore Specific/Single Files from Windows 11/10/8/7 Backup

"Hello everyone, do you know how to restore or extract a specific single file from a Windows image backup?"

I've encountered a problem – I lost a very important document on my computer and have tried various methods to retrieve it. The issue is, I've saved new files on the storage device where the lost file was located, meaning the document has likely been overwritten.
I recall creating a Windows backup on my computer before the loss of the document. So, I'm wondering if it's possible to recover or extract a specific file from the Windows backup? How would I go about doing that?

As we all know, the Windows Backup and Restore tool can help us easily create a system image. In addition, it allows you to back up important files, folders, or even entire disk partitions as an image. So, can we extract or restore specific or single files from Windows Backup? Of course! The following two effective methods will show you how to extract a single file from a Windows image backup. You can follow the steps below to recover your desired files from Windows 10/8/7 backups:

Method 1: Restore Specific Files from Windows 11/10/8/7 Backup

Here, we recommend you try a powerful file recovery tool that lets you effectively find and restore specific files from Windows 10/8/7 backup with just three simple steps:

Before you begin using the file recovery software to look for a specific file on your Windows PC, there's one thing you need to do – install the Windows backup image:

For Windows 10/8/8.1 users: 1. Type "Computer Management" in the search box and hit Enter. 2. Navigate to "Storage" > "Disk Management." 3. Click on "Action" > "Attach VHD." 4. Browse to locate your Windows backup file > Select the drive you wish to attach, then click "Open." 5. Windows will attach the VHDX virtual hard disk file as a new drive with a light blue icon. If this drive doesn't have a drive letter assigned, right-click on the virtual drive partition and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." to assign a new letter, allowing you to access it. 6. You can now access the virtual drive and find the required files.

For Windows 7 users: 1. Open Disk Management > Click on Actions > Select Attach VHD. 2. Click Browse > Locate the Windows image backup file with the .vhd extension. 3. The mounted VHD Windows image will appear as a new drive on your computer. When AutoPlay appears, select "Open folder to view files." 4. You can now browse and locate the specific file from the Windows backup image.

Instead of searching and picking files one by one from a large amount of Windows backup files, the best way to find a specific file is to let Data Recovery Wizard do the job for you. With 3 simple clicks, it will scan and locate your target file:

If the file is smaller than 2 GB, the job can be done with the Data Recovery Wizard Free utility.

Step 1. Launch the Data Recovery Wizard tool. Select the disk where you lost your files and start scanning. This software lets you recover lost data from all kinds of devices, including HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, flash drives, cameras, and more.

Step 2. Check the complete scan results. You can click the file type filter to select the file types you need. tools Data Recovery Wizard supports 1000+ file types, such as photos, videos, documents, emails, audio files, etc.

Select the files to recover

Step 3: Preview the files you want to retrieve. Click on “Recover” and set a location to save the retrieved data.

After that, you can restore files directly from the Windows backup image without any issues.

Method 2: Extracting a Single File from a Windows Backup

For Windows 10/8/8.1 users: 1. Click on "Start" > "Settings" > "Update & Security." 2. Click on "Backup" > "More options" > Scroll down and click "Restore files from a current backup."

3. Browse different backup versions and find the file or folder you want by searching for its name; 4. Select the specific file you want to restore and click or tap “Restore” to put the file back where it was.

For Windows 7 users: 1. Click Start > type: backup, and select Backup and Restore. 2. Click Recover my files > locate and select the individual file or folder you want to restore, then click Next. 3. Choose where you want to save your recovered file. 4. Decide how to handle existing copies of the file: Overwrite and replace, Don't copy, or Copy but keep both files. 5. Review your restored file, then click Finish to close the dialog.