Mount vdi as drive in Windows

Question

I am wanting to mount a VDI file that no longer boots to a drive in Windows to, hopefully, recover some files.

I am aware that Winmount advertises this function, but I am a bit confused about which edition is the best, 32 or 64, as the VDI is a 32 bit image that I would like to mount on a 64 bit OS (Win7).

I am also happy to consider other software, or possibly even using ubuntu to mount to instead, though my Linux skills are not particularly useful.

EDIT

I have marked surfasb as the answer, as he (she?) directly answered the question I put out there.

For anyone who is having the same problem as I was, try what was suggested by Joe Internet.

Boot VirtualBox into Ubuntu, with the non booting windows VDI attached as a second hard drive (Primary Slave in my case). Despite my totally failing to succeed with this method with another bootable Windows image, booting to Ubuntu happily mounted my dodgy vdi image, and allowed me to recover my files.

You might be able to attach the vdi to a VirtualBox VM, and boot the VM from an Ubuntu live-cd .iso in the virtual cd drive. Ubuntu would most likely auto-mount the vdi, and you would be able to browse it via the file manager. If that works, you could conigure the VM to usea USB stickfor saving your files. — Joe Internet, Oct 03 '11 at 05:30
@Joe Internet - I spent a greater part of Friday trying to do this with a Windows 7 boot image, but it would also freeze when I tried to attach the non booting vdi. I just tried attaching it to an old Ubuntu vdi I had from a while ago. Five minutes later, I had all my files back! Thanks for the tip! — lagerdalek, Oct 03 '11 at 21:00

score 17 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 31 '20 at 11:46

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I was able to recover files from Ubuntu 18.04 guest on Windows 10 host (Virtualbox 6.0) as simply as opening the VDI file in 7-Zip by right-clicking the VDI file -> 7-Zip -> Open archive and drive contents was shown like any other archive.

answered Oct 31 '20 at 11:46

Samuli Asmala

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7Zip is 'badass'... saved me lots of times also! – ZEE Oct 31 '20 at 11:52
This answer needs 100000000 upvotes. 7-zip is an amazing piece of software. – Ryan Griggs Dec 01 '21 at 18:07
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As of 2022, 7-zip was the only listed solution that actually still worked for modern Virtual Box .VDI images. – CJ Ratliff Feb 01 '22 at 01:36
7-zip opens everything. In my case, I want to run Windows dism.exe to mounted volume so 7-zip is not good for me. ImDisk from the other side is the solution. – Chameleon Mar 18 '23 at 19:18
Another glowing review for 7zip, was able view a vdi disk from a "secure" vm and see all the files, cool. – JimLohse Jun 12 '23 at 16:39

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited May 02 '22 at 11:43

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Try ImDisk it's saved my bacon a few times and it's free!

edited May 02 '22 at 11:43

TryTryAgain

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answered Jan 16 '12 at 18:27

Jonathan DeMarks

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It can also create RAM drives, awesome tool – Pawel Cioch Mar 22 '19 at 20:41
I recommend this too... used a lot of times before .vhdx... – ZEE Oct 31 '20 at 11:51
Can badly hang on Windows 7: `Hangs on write into .vdi or .vmdk mounted image`: https://github.com/LTRData/ImDisk/issues/15. Author recommends to use `Arsenal Image Mounter`: https://github.com/ArsenalRecon/Arsenal-Image-Mounter – Andry Nov 16 '22 at 22:07
I already use ImDisk! It really mounts .vdi! I never knew it! – Chameleon Mar 18 '23 at 19:17

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 03 '11 at 01:45

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You'll want the 64 bit since your (host) OS is 64. The main thing is that Winmount will install drivers and you'll need the drivers to match your OS (64).

answered Oct 03 '11 at 01:45

surfasb

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Mount vdi as drive in Windows

3 Answers3