Booting into VHD with Windows 7.

Hello,

I used a tool to create an image of a harddisk and then I used another
tool(?) to turn it into a vhd. I also used windows 7 disk management tool to
attach the vhd. According to the link below this changes something which
will lead to boot problems into the vhd.

I tried booting into the vhd but it doesn't work.

The problem is described in the comments on this link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mikeormond/a...-disk2vhd.aspx

Is there a solution by now ?

Bye,
Skybuck.

No change that I'm aware of. And this behaviour is entirely predictable --
you can't have two disks with the exact same disk signature (GUID) on the
same system. Duh.

Also, I have no idea what tools you used, but some of them will end up with
a non-bootable VHD. Disk2VHD from MS works fine for me. I used it to create
an image of working Win7 and Server 2008 systems and moving them to my
Hyper-V server. They were bootable and ran without issue. I've not
_recently_ tried booting from a VHD, though I know no reason to think it's
changed, and it worked fine during the beta.

--
Charlie.
http://blogs.msmvps.com/russel


"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote in message
news:c72ce$4ddfaee6$54192c06$ b.home.nl...
> Hello,
>
> I used a tool to create an image of a harddisk and then I used another
> tool(?) to turn it into a vhd. I also used windows 7 disk management tool
> to attach the vhd. According to the link below this changes something
> which will lead to boot problems into the vhd.
>
> I tried booting into the vhd but it doesn't work.
>
> The problem is described in the comments on this link:
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mikeormond/a...-disk2vhd.aspx
>
> Is there a solution by now ?
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>

> No change that I'm aware of. And this behaviour is entirely predictable --
> you can't have two disks with the exact same disk signature (GUID) on the
> same system. Duh.

Can this be fixed ? If so how ? I guess it involves chaging the GUID ? Which
tool can do that, and is this safe ?

> Also, I have no idea what tools you used, but some of them will end up
> with a non-bootable VHD. Disk2VHD from MS works fine for me. I used it to
> create

vhd tool 2.0, disk2vhd

(I think the first one I used, or it was windd but probably not windd it's
gui is weird... I am not sure if it would overwrite a drive... I think it
might... so didn't use that it was too risky... so I probably use vhd tool
2.0)

Also is it possible to auto-mount a vhd so windows 7 sees it ?

What would be commands and tools/script for it ?

Perhaps batch file with commands in it and then "run script of
login/logoff"...

Bye,
Skybuck.

Also the VHD is a windows xp pro 64 bit, so it probably cannot be
virtualized since no "virtualization solution" can currently run 64 bit
operating systems ?!?

So this leaves "booting into vhd" as only option, besides from copieing it
back to a real disk, and then somehow changing partition size to fit new
disk

Bye,
Skybuck.

Ok,

Maybe I was wrong, maybe VMWare supports 64 bit operating system as guests
and it seems free too:

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html

Not sure if it will work... but I think I am going to give it a try...

This would allow me to reboot the operating system multiple times without
actually rebooting the real computer to get around creative labs
soundblaster driver issues

This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse from
inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses... though
this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit operating system,
since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact

Bye,
Skybuck.

And Hyper-V certainly supports 64-bit operating systems. Or I'd be shut down
here.

Oh, and the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is compltely free. VMWare, btw, does not
support VHDs. They use a different format for their hard disks.

Charlie.

"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote in message
news:9ed0f$4de30dc5$54192c06$ b.home.nl...
> Ok,
>
> Maybe I was wrong, maybe VMWare supports 64 bit operating system as guests
> and it seems free too:
>
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html
>
> Not sure if it will work... but I think I am going to give it a try...
>
> This would allow me to reboot the operating system multiple times without
> actually rebooting the real computer to get around creative labs
> soundblaster driver issues
>
> This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse
> from inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses...
> though this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit
> operating system, since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>

Oh, and as for Creative? Just say no. Their software has gotten to be too
onerous to live with. IMNSHO.

Charlie.

"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote in message
news:9ed0f$4de30dc5$54192c06$ b.home.nl...
> Ok,
>
> Maybe I was wrong, maybe VMWare supports 64 bit operating system as guests
> and it seems free too:
>
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html
>
> Not sure if it will work... but I think I am going to give it a try...
>
> This would allow me to reboot the operating system multiple times without
> actually rebooting the real computer to get around creative labs
> soundblaster driver issues
>
> This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse
> from inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses...
> though this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit
> operating system, since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>

On 30/05/2011 in message
<9ed0f$4de30dc5$54192c06$ me.nl> Skybuck Flying
wrote:

>This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse
>from inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses...
>though this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit
>operating system, since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact

Virtual machines are just as vulnerable to viruses as hardware machines.

--
Those are my principles – and if you don’t like them, well, I have others.
(Groucho Marx)

Hyper-V seems to be a stand-alone operating system, so it's not like VMware
Workstation or Virtual PC which are applications.

Also Hyper-V has no GUI ?!? and it requites special instructions which I am
not sure if my AMD X2 3800+ processor has... probably not

I think VMware can be forced to used VHD but I could be wrong

So Hyper-V is more for servers... not really desktops ?! and is probably
ment for "virtualization experts" which are used to command line...

Bye,
Skybuck.

"Charlie Russel-MVP" wrote in message news:irv7jq$an4$...

And Hyper-V certainly supports 64-bit operating systems. Or I'd be shut down
here.

Oh, and the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is compltely free. VMWare, btw, does not
support VHDs. They use a different format for their hard disks.

Charlie.

"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote in message
news:9ed0f$4de30dc5$54192c06$ b.home.nl...
> Ok,
>
> Maybe I was wrong, maybe VMWare supports 64 bit operating system as guests
> and it seems free too:
>
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html
>
> Not sure if it will work... but I think I am going to give it a try...
>
> This would allow me to reboot the operating system multiple times without
> actually rebooting the real computer to get around creative labs
> soundblaster driver issues
>
> This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse
> from inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses...
> though this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit
> operating system, since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>

So far their software seems to work just fine on Windows 7 at least with 2
GB of ram.

I have not yet tested with 4 GB but will do so in future when I feel like it
! =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

"Charlie Russel-MVP" wrote in message news:irv7lj$ato$...

Oh, and as for Creative? Just say no. Their software has gotten to be too
onerous to live with. IMNSHO.

Charlie.

"Skybuck Flying" <> wrote in message
news:9ed0f$4de30dc5$54192c06$ b.home.nl...
> Ok,
>
> Maybe I was wrong, maybe VMWare supports 64 bit operating system as guests
> and it seems free too:
>
> http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html
>
> Not sure if it will work... but I think I am going to give it a try...
>
> This would allow me to reboot the operating system multiple times without
> actually rebooting the real computer to get around creative labs
> soundblaster driver issues
>
> This would also be nice for webbrowsing then I can hopefully webbrowse
> from inside the virtual machine and not worry too much about viruses...
> though this would again require a reinstall of a 64 bit or 32 bit
> operating system, since I need the 512 GB VHD to survive intact
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>