Okay, Downloaded the Windows Server 2008 R2 ISO Image, created a new Virtual Machine, added Windows Server Backup and made a complete backup, sans the destination drive for the backup, to a USB Flash Drive.
Booted the VM from the the ISO Image and it did not see the Backup from USB Flash Drive even though I can see it from the Command Prompt.
Also created a Raw Disk .vmdk pointing to the USB Flash Drive and booted the VM from the the ISO Image and it did not see the Backup from the .vmdk Raw Disk of the USB Flash Drive because the Virtual Machine had issues during the boot process. Forget the exact error message however I tried both as a whole disk and a partition. So that's why I tested copying it to a normal file based virtual hard disk ( and that worked).
Finally I created a normal file based .vmdk and copied the Backup Folder from the USB Flash Drive to it and then booted the VM from the the ISO Image and it had no problems seeing the Backup from the normal file based .vmdk.
So it looks like you're going to have to take the long way around but at least you should be able to see it! Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I do not know if when booting from the ISO Image or Optical Disc of Windows Server 2008 R2 the Command Line Backup Tools are available to restore the image however you could look into that. I would however I just do not have the time at the moment.
Message was edited by: WoodyZ - Changed comment re: Raw Disk
