Mount Microsoft Windows 7 System Image VHD in Linux

Install libguestfs tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine (VM) disk images

sudo yum install libguestfs-tools      # Fedora/RHEL/CentOS
sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools  # Debian/Ubuntu

Mount Microsoft Windows 7 System Image Backup Virtual Hard Disk – VHD files using guestmount

Example to open a Windows System Image Backup VHD file stored on a backup drive (D:)

sudo mkdir /mnt/vhdmp
sudo guestmount --add /media/mike/New\ Volume/WindowsImageBackup/DESKTOP-86333F0/Backup\ 2023-11-28\ 145005/3300c520-45e9-48f0-aaca-5b5a0b380b77.vhdx --inspector --ro /mnt/vhdmp

Once mounted use Krusader (Admin mode) or Nautilus to open the mount point directory (\mnt\vhdmp) to browse the contents

Above example mounts in Read-Only mode. To mount Read-Write replace –ro with -rw. To avoid corruption make a copy of the image file first to work on.

Unmount drive and clean up as follows:

guestunmount /mnt
rmdir /mnt/vhdmp