The structure of the windows 7 image restore files appears to be:
a root directory in the drive with the name: drive letter\WindowsImageBackup ie F:\WindowsImageBackup
within that directory (perhaps in a subdirectory of that directory) there are files with goblededgook names like:
209cd052-7e95-11e1-a661-806e6f6e6963.vhd
ef4b635f-1612-4172-b3cb-53cfaa282e99_Writer4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f.xml
note that there are .vhd files and .xml files
You probably cannot move just one file and have the restore system find everything it needs. It is probably looking for a folder not a single file. And it probably expects to find everything exactly where it put it.
Have you tried to restore the complete backup directory including all the files to their original location. Or to move all of the files to a new root directory named WindowsImageBackup?
And there is some indication that additional portions of the backup do not move with the backup file, since they are not stored inside that file.
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-support/61674-how-do-you-move-windows-7-backup-files-new-larger-hdd.html The portions of the backup in the volume shadow copy area of the original location may already be overwritten. Your best chance of getting this image back would be to re-create the backup entire folder structure to the state it was in when you moved the image file, and even then it is possible you will not get the system you expect restored. Bottom line, the built in Windows 7 imaging is designed to work exactly one way and does not allow you to move older images about at your whim. This is quite different from things like Acronis or
Macrium Reflect.
Your unfortunate experience is making me a lot less sanguine about the security of my Win 7 system images. I hope someone else can come up with a better solution, but this seems to be a commonly encountered and rarely solved problem for people who have tried to move their Win7 disk image.