Windows Shadow Volumes

Volume Shadow Copy Service

Windows has included the Volume Shadow Copy Service in it's releases since Windows XP. The Shadow Copy Service creates differential backups periodically to create restore points for the user. Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions include tools to work with and manage the Volume Shadow Copy Service, including the ability to mount shadow volumes on disk images.

In Windows 8 the shadow volumes seem to have been superseded by File History. For now it looks like it uses similar structures as its predecessors.

Also see

• Windows
• How to: Mount shadow volumes on disk images

External Links

How to analyze Shadow Volumes

• VISTA and Windows 7 Shadow Volume Forensics, by Rob Lee, October 2008
• Accessing Volume Shadow Copies, by Harlan Carvey, January 2011
• More VSCs, by Harlan Carvey, January 2011
• A Little Help with Volume Shadow Copies, by Corey Harrell, April 2011
• Volume Shadow Copy with ProDiscover, May 2011
• HowTo: Mount and Access VSCs, by Harlan Carvey, September 2011
• Shadow Timelines And Other VolumeShadowCopy Digital Forensics Techniques with the Sleuthkit on Windows, by Rob Lee, September 2011
• Ripping Volume Shadow Copies – Introduction, by Corey Harrell, January 2012
• Ripping VSCs – Practitioner Method, by Corey Harrell, February 2012
• Ripping VSCs – Practitioner Examples, by Corey Harrell, February 2012
• Ripping VSCs – Developer Method, by Corey Harrell, February 2012
• Ripping VSCs – Developer Examples, by Corey Harrell, February 2012
• Examining VSCs with GUI Tools, by Corey Harrell, February 2012
• VSC Toolset: A GUI Tool for Shadow Copies, by Jason Hale, March 2012
• Examining Volume Shadow Copies – The Easy Way!, by Simon Key, June 2012
• Getting Ready for a Shadow Volume Exam, by Jimmy Weg, June 2012
• Mounting Shadow Volumes, by Jimmy Weg, July 2012
• Examining the Shadow Volumes with X-Ways Forensics, by Jimmy Weg, July 2012
• “Weg, I’m afraid that I don’t have VMware. How do I Examime Shadow Volumes?”, by Jimmy Weg, August 2012
• "Examining shadow copies without vssadmin, it's as easy as 1, 2, 3 (really)", by Paul Sanderson, January 2013

Shadow Volumes in depth

• Reliably recovering evidential data from Volume Shadow Copies in Windows Vista and Windows 7, by James Crabtree and Gary Evans, 2010
• Into The Shadows and Presentation, by Lee Whitfield, April 2010
• Volume Shadow Snapshot format, by the libvshadow project, March 2011
• File History Services, by Kenneth Johnson, June 2012
• Windowless Shadow Snapshots - Analyzing Volume Shadow Snapshots (VSS) without using Windows and OSDFC 2012 Slides, by Joachim Metz, October 2012

Other

• Lurking in the Shadows – Hack3rcon II
• Volume Shadow Copies - The Lost Post, Mark Baggett, October 2012

Tools

• EnCase with VSS Examiner Enscript (available from the downloads section of the GSI Support Portal)
• libvshadow
• ProDiscover
• ShadowExplorer
• VSC Toolset
• X-Ways Forensics
• Reconnoitre