VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) and its successor VHDX are file formats used by Microsoft Virtual PC to represent a virtual hard disk drive (HDD). A VHD/VHDX file will have the same contents of a formatted physical hard drive, including a boot record, disk partitions, file systems, files, and folders. A VHD/VHDX file is typically used as a logical disk in a virtual machine, but it can also be attached directly to the Windows system (7 or later).

Just like physical hard drives, VHD/VHDX files are at risk for corruption, accidental deletion of their files, virus attacks, and other causes of data loss. As such, the ability to recover data from a VHD/VHDX image can be very valuable.

This article will show you how to use R-Studio for this task. All versions of R-Studio 9.3 and later can load VHD/VHDX files whereas R-Studio Technician/T80+ can create such files.

We'll start with the R-Studio version that can directly load VHD/VHDX files. The last part of this article will show how to work with R-Studio versions that cannot load such files.

Data recovery case: There's a VHDX file that earlier contained two partitions.

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Then the second partition (Disk F:, Test-2) was deleted and the first partition (Disk E:, Test-1) was extended to the whole disk.

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The task: Data recovery from the second partition of the VHDX disk.

Case 1: Data recovery from a healthy VHDX file (it can be attached to the system).

1. Open the VHDX file as an image.

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2. Scan the opened VHDX disk.

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Click the Scan button, then click the Change… button, leave only NTFS selected, and click the Scan button. You may read more about scan parameters in the on-line help: Drive Scan.

> R-Studio will start scanning the VHDX disk showing its progress.

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3. Inspect the scan result and locate the second partition.

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You can do that looking on the partition offset and size.

4. Enumerate files on the second partition (Recognized 2) by double-clicking it.

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You can perform all data recovery actions as if this is a real hard drive. For example, preview a file.

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Then you can mark all necessary file for recovery and recover them as if it was a real logical disk.

Case 2: Data recovery from a damaged VHDX file (it cannot be attached to the system)
This method can be used for all R-Studio versions, even those that cannot directly load VHD/VHDX disks.

1. Open the VHDX file as a byte-by-byte image.

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2. Scan the opened VHDX disk.

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Click the Scan button, then click the Change… button, leave only NTFS selected, and click the Scan button. You may read more about scan parameters in the on-line help.

> R-Studio will start scanning the VHDX disk showing its progress.

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3. Inspect the scan result and locate the second partition.

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You can do that by looking at the partition offset and size.

4. Enumerate files on the second partition (Recognized 2) by double-clicking it. You can perform all data recovery actions as if this is a real hard drive. For example, preview a file.

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Then you can mark all necessary file for recovery and recover them as it was a real logical disk.

Case 3: Data recovery from a healthy VHDX file by an R-Studio version that cannot load VHD/VHDX files

Virtual Hard Disks are healthy and can be attached in Windows.

Attaching a VHD file directly in a host operating system requires Windows 7 or later.

1. Attach the VHD image to the system from the Windows Disk Management utility.

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If successfully mounted, the partitions will be assigned drive letters. They will also appear as normal disks in R-Studio.

2. Process the attached VHD disks in R-Studio as regular disks.

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Conclusion
All versions of R-Studio have the capability to find lost partitions, recover data, and copy data from VHD/VHDX files.

If the R-Studio version you're using can load VHD/VHDX files (9.3 and higher), R-Studio can open a healthy VHD/VHDX file as a conventional disk image and process it in the same way you would process a normal hard drive.

For previous versions of R-Studio that cannot load such files, another technique should be used: the VHD/VHDX file can be attached to the system (Windows 7 and higher) and then R-Studio can process it as a real hard drive.

For a corrupted VHD/VHDX file, more advanced methods can be employed to locate and recover lost data. This file should be loaded as a byte-by-byte image and scanned for partitions, file systems, and individual files.