You can boot your computer from the converted .vhd file to test whether the backup is valid and can be recovered to a bootable operating system. You can also boot from a .tib file. In this case, it will be converted automatically to a .vhd file. Refer to Booting from a .tib image of your system partition for details.
You can keep a converted .vhd file for emergency situations. For example, if your computer cannot start and you need to run it right away, you can boot from the .vhd file.
In Windows 7, you can mount a .vhd file as an additional drive. The .vhd file may contain any partitions – system or non-system.
Limitations and additional information
A file backup cannot be converted to a .vhd file.
To boot from a converted .vhd file, it must contain:
System partition of the same computer. You cannot boot other computers using the same .vhd file.
Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise.
Any changes you make to a booted or mounted .vhd file are saved to it. If you boot from a .vhd file and make changes to the data that was not backed up, these changes will affect your live system.
You cannot run a converted .vhd file as a virtual machine.
The stand-alone versions of Acronis True Image 2014 that start when booting from the rescue media do not support conversion operations.
Disk images created by Windows 8 (.vhdx files) are not supported.
True Image cannot convert .tib and .vhd files that contain dynamic volumes which were originally located on more than one disk drive (for example, spanned or striped dynamic volumes).