Customer data for physical systems may be backed up to a backing store, as is common with remote backup systems. Mirrors and incremental files may be captured periodically. These backup files may be used to recreate files of the physical system at a later point in time. Backup files captured over time may be used to recreate the file system of the physical system at an arbitrary point in time in the past (e.g., prior to the failure event).
According to known methods, to access blocks of files from a backing store, a physical or virtual disk is partitioned and formatted. Files from a backing store are then populated onto the disk. The disk is then mounted for use. Therefore, when an end user desires to obtain only a part of a file, or even a selected file or group of files, the end user recreates the entire physical disk, which is an onerous task given the desired outcome.