By Jove I've Got It! 7-zip saves the day.

So this past week I've been working on data recovery. This computer that I've been working on had such a catastrophic problem that you couldn't even boot into safe mode. Most searches for the errors I found pointed to nuke the drive and start over. So I took an image of the drive using Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition that comes bundled with new WD hard drives as it was the only tool I had installed that would create an image. Worked great, the backup was fast and complete. So I nuked the hard drive and reinstalled Windows. Whoo!

So I have a working computer now, problem solved. Now to go the extra mile and perform that data recovery. Should be simple right? All I have to do is mount the image using Acronis and copy the files over the network right? WRONG! The files were marked as private.

But no matter, I'm logged in as a Windows Administrator I have all rights to all things in my computer right? WRONG. Apparently there is a known disconnect with .tib files and permission settings that prevent anyone from taking ownership over those files.

But no matter, I've got VMware Workstation installed and it can convert from .tib files right? WRONG. At least in my experience, but maybe if if those .tib files were created using Acronis' server grade products, but not with the lowly Western Digital Edition. VMware gave a lovely error with this: "The source parameters are incorrect."

But no matter, I've got an ESXi distribution and VMware converter at work, that should be able to handle the conversion to VMware right? WRONG. see above for the same error message.

But no matter, Acronis True Image Home available for free 30 day trial can convert to VMware right? WRONG. Yeah it just flat out didn't do it.

So you're probably wondering how I was able to finally do it. Using the 30 day trial of Acronis True Image Home, I converted the image to a Windows Image (.vhd) then using 7-zip of all tools. I was able to open the image, see partitions stored in .img files, open those up again with 7-zip and extract the files. WHOO!!!

Now if that's not a kludge, I don't know what is.