My portable hard drive recently got formatted by accident. Then I installed GetDataBack. It found all the data and created a disc image file. The disc image file is now located on the C: drive. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do to open the file or copy the data. The file is 488GB, which is way too big to burn it onto a DVD. If it was a smaller file I would just burn it onto a DVD using ImgBurn. Obviously I can't do that with such a large file. What program should I use to access the data? I want to transfer the files in the image file back onto the portable hard drive so I can use them again.

 

You may want to invest in a Western Digital Passport external hard drive and transfer it to that. Then you can manage the download to your computer.

 

Why would I need another portable hard drive?

How do you access the data in the image file?

 

What's the extension on the file?

 

Apparently it's .img

25characters........

 

Looks like another program is needed - first Google hit:
How to Open an IMG File in Windows 7 | Chron.com

 

Write the image back to a drive: https://www.runtime.org/dewrite.htm

This will overwrite everything on the drive.

If you just want to look the files in the image, I believe GetDataBack includes a simple viewer.

 

I have been using Daemon Tools Lite for may years to create and manage disk images. It will "mount" practically any disk image format, after which the image will appear as a new drive letter, just like a physical hard drive/CD/DVD.

Mount your disk image, open Windows Explorer, drill down to the new drive letter and transfer the contents from the virtual HDD onto the physical HDD. It also will create an image file from a physical hard drive, thumb drive or CD/DVD.

I'm using an older version of the freeware (v.5.01.407) that is dumbed-down compared to the pay version but also is ad-free. However, apparently now the freeware version is ad-supported. If you can't live with the adverts, maybe you could find an ad-free older version at Tucows or File Hippo.

 

DoubleZero, I agree with Fred that you will need a virtual drive software. A virtual drive basically acts as a "pretend" CD/DVD optical drive. Your image file (.img) will be mounted to a virtual drive.

You can use Daemon Tools Lite or you can google "free Virtual Drive". I haven't used Daemon for years now because I have found more lightweight (footprint) virtual drive software.

 

No one said what was wrong with Carbide Tipped's suggestion in post #7. Wouldn't that be more straight forward? Seems like you would be putting the same disk back to its former state which I thought was the goal.

But maybe I missed the point.

 

Ive used poweriso for many years. I found it easier than deamon

 

#10
Most virtual drive programs can extract the contents of the image wherever you want

 

I can see how that’s a plus but in this case it seems that doublezero just wants to put everything back on the same external drive it came from and be done with it. In other words, just get back to where it all started from before the portable drive was accidentally reformatted. Could be wrong.

I thought the .img file was the image of the entire hard drive (the portable drive in this case). That’s why it seemed to me – just copy it back to the portable drive and you are done. Just continue on as if the reformatting error never happened. But I have never actually used GetBackData myself.

 

I didn't realize that was the objective. All my post was concerned with was offering advice to the OP. Didn't realize I was supposed to be picking a fight with CarbideTipped, too.

 

I think you may have misunderstood the OP’s question and may not have given the original post a careful enough reading. I very politely, so I thought, alluded to the fact that the simple direct answer appears to be in post #7, which appears to have been ignored, but which tells the OP that he just needs to execute the final step in his Runtime recovery process: copy the .img file back to the portable drive using the tool created by Runtime software (creators of GetBackData) for this very purpose - something he did not do.

The OP is not asking for a generalized capability to manipulate disc images. He is not asking for the capability to extract files from an .img file and copy those files to anywhere. He is not asking for the capability to create new disc images. He does not need a Virtual Drive capability. He only wants the files that were on the portable hard drive before the accidental re-formatting restored back to the portable hard drive. That’s why, presumably, he chose the .img file output option from GetBackData in the first place.

I assume you are familiar with the KISS method. That’s the point here. Using Runtimes’s own tool for restoring images created by Runtime, as proposed in post #7, minimizes any compatibility issues that might occur when using another party’s restoration software. That is extremely important.

I think it was incumbent upon you to explain why a full blown disc imaging Application, as you suggested, in this case is equal or superior to the solution outlined in post #7 . You omitted that explanation from your post, and that leaves the reader in the dark. I’m sure you think your suggestion is as least as good or better or you wouldn’t have posted it.