Cannot Access Files On Mounted Image Backup (DR Image), Obtain file access permissions on read-only-mounted volume using the Robocopy command (built in to Windows):
This guide applies to someone who has Mounted a NovaBACKUP Image Backup (Disaster Recovery) volume (.NDF) as a Virtual Drive in Windows, read the Knowledge Base article here, and is having trouble accessing or copying files from the Virtual Drive contents of that mounted Image Backup (Disaster Recovery) volume because of permissions issue. The permission issue is coming in to play for one of three reasons, you have re-installed Windows on this PC or another PC that you are mounting the Image Backup (Disaster Recovery) volume as a Virtual Drive and now are unable to access certain protected folders such as C:\Users\, you are attempting to mount the Image Backup (Disaster Recovery) volume as a Virtual Drive on another computer, or you are logging on to your computer as a different user name than the original user name that was used to create the image with.
You can copy the folder in question to a local disk using RoboCopy which resets the permissions on all of the copied files at the same time, RoboCopy is a command that is built in to Windows.
Start an Administrative Command Prompt by typing "cmd" in to the Start Menu search or run area and then right-click on cmd.exe and then click on "Run as administrator". That is necessary for the next steps.
Assuming the currently Mounted Image Backup (Disaster Recovery) volume that is inside the Image Backup / Disaster Recovery Image (most of the time that would be just the C: volume) is mounted as drive letter E:, type the following command to set the permissions on the files as they are copied to a new folder on an X: drive named "X:\Jon". For assistance on how to mount your Image Backup please read the KB article here. Make sure that if your source or destination paths contain any spaces that you surround the path in double quotes in both the source and the destination path(s) in the command line variables here:
ROBOCOPY /E /B /R:3 "E:\users\Jon User" "X:\Jon"
Note: In the above RoboCopy command example the switch options are detailed below, and the source folder is the first stated folder, for the folder to be copied, including all sub-folders, and the target folder "X:\Jon" must exist already at the target, with the "Jon" folder name there, otherwise the command will fail. If the target is changed to be just "X:" then the copy of all of the contents of the source will copy to the root of the X:\ drive which is likely not what is wanted.
Options:
/E (copy sub-directories, including Empty ones)
/B (copy files in Backup mode: the /B option tells RoboCopy to use backup privilege to override the security permissions.)
/R:n (number of Retries on failed copies: the default is 1 million.)
Issuing this command will start restoring the files and will allow the files to restore.
NOTE: The /B option tells Robocopy to use backup privilege to override the security permissions. For additional help on using Robocopy and for a detailed explanation of the available switches please read the new Microsoft hosted article here and the old Microsoft hosted article here.