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I have a backup of a drive made by Macrium Reflect which I have mapped as a drive to be able to browse it. Part of the backup is a $RECYCLE.BIN which I would like to explore but when I try to open it, I always end up in my local recycle bin. How can I access the backed up recycle bin?

I made three screenshots:

  1. The root directory of the backup
  2. After clicking on recycle bin of the backup
  3. My local recycle bin

I tried to copy the recycle bin folder from the backup to my local storage and rename it but that didn't work either. I still end up in the local recycle bin with no files from the backed up recycle bin.

The files in the backed up recycle bin are definitely there because when I hover with mouse over the folder a preview of its content is showed which corresponds with the backed up recycle bin and these files are not contained in my local recycle bin.

EDIT: I figured out a way to get to those files even though it is no the most elegant solution, it works. You just have to create an archive (I used WinRAR) with the backed up recycle bin and then extract just the files from inside of the archived recycle bin.

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What worked for this PC was mounting the Reflect image, checking Enable access to restricted folders and Make writable. The file G:\$RECYCLE.BIN was then copied to a temporary folder, C:\temp, and opened in Explorer, where a number of subfolders were shown, all named Recycle Bin. The files in the subfolders, which had previously been deleted to the Recycle Bin, could then be cut from that folder and pasted into the outer folder C:\temp, where they could be opened. Note that it was not possible to open them while in Recycle Bin. Hopefully, this will work on your system.

My original thought was, if one mounts the Macrium Reflect image as a drive, what shows in the Windows Recycle Bin in Explorer should be the sum of everything in all the $RECYCLE.BIN files on all the mounted drives. However, the author of the question stated he had tried that and it did not work as expected

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  • This is what I originally thought as well but in my case it is not working like that. Unfortunately there are ONLY files from my local recycle bin and no files from the backup. The oldest file in the recycle bin is just two weeks old whereas the backup is nearly a year old and on top of that it is a backup from another PC so the files cannot be the same.
    – Albert Clarke
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 10:57
  • @AlbertClarke, the answer has been revised, exploring $RECYCLE.BIN itself.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 19:48
  • Unfortunately the new method doesn't work either.
    – Albert Clarke
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 21:25
  • Check out my question, I found a solution but a simpler one would be still appreciated.
    – Albert Clarke
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 22:11

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