Virtual Hard Drive VHD File - Create and Start with at Boot

I know there has not been any recent postings to this tutorial, but I thought I would see if I can get a response.

This tutorial pertains to a FRESH install of WIN 7 to a vhd to create a bootable vhd volume? I have a different situation where I already have a vhd that was created via the WIN 7 BACKUP utility some time ago. I successfully copied the vhd to my C drive & used EASYBCD to create a boot entry so that I could boot from the vhd. I completed that sucessfully & can boot into the old system setup. However, once the system prepares my desktop the START menu or even WINDOWS EXPLORER fails to appear. In the lower right corner the message that this WINDOWS system is not genuine appears.

That normally would not be a problem if I could get to the system properties to enter the proper authorization key, but it appears that I cannot get to the controls panel. Do I need to boot up in SAFE MODE (it does the same thing in SAFE MODE) or do something else?

HOPE that someone sees this. I have never booted from a vhd before so hopefully I am missing some minor procedure.

Brink said:

Hello betaupsilon, :)

That's correct. This tutorial is for when you create the VHD at boot and install Windows to it instead.

The tutorial below may be what you used instead.

Boot from a VHD using Windows 7

When Windows Explore fails to appear, you might see if you may be able to do this below to get it to do so:

1) Open Task Manager (CTRL+Shift+Esc)

2) Click on File (menu bar) in Task Manager

3) Click on Open, type explorer, and press Enter.

The trick with the TASK MGR worked, but I encountered other problems. The system created a TEMP profile for me. I could not access My Documents or CONTROL PANEL either. Anyway, the tutorial link you listed above had the following statement:
Tip
You Must reset your VHD VirtualOS configuration like HAL type and driver configuration or your VHD will fail to boot!!! It must be cleaned of VirtualOS configuration correctly before windows 7 can boot your VHD!!


I have not worked with a VirtualOS & the above link gives no references as to how to reset the configuration. Could this be the culprit & if so do you have any reference?

Thanks

OK, I got the same behavior using the CMD mode per the link you provided. The system seems to boot up just fine. I am then prompted to enter my password below my username. Then it seems to log me in & then the system starts "preparing my desktop". It is as if I am logging in for the 1st time & the system needs to load my personal settings into my environment. This might be expected since I have NEVER booted into a vhd. However, it seems it cannot load my settings & then creates a TEMP profile for me. Once this is done I cannot seem to access any documents, programs, or even CONTROLS PANEL.

So there must be something missing in the procedure to allow the system to recognize me as the USER. I am presuming all of the USER info does reside within the vhd. In fact, I know that it does because I can mount the vhd via DISK MGR & go to the USERS directory & see all of my info.

This is when I questioned if the issue on the VirtualOS configuration which the link you provided mentioned, but gave no specifics.

Brink said:

You might see if you may be able to use the tutorial below for this to help.

User Profile Error - Logged on with a Temporary Profile

If it doesn't help, then you may need to start from scratch using the tutorial on the first page here instead.

I found the problem, but I don't know the fix. There is nothing wrong with the USER profile. What is wrong is when I boot from the vhd the drive letter is H, not C. I found this when attempting to enable the built in ADMIN acct as suggested in your link.

I will try to use the DISK MGR to reassign drive letters, but I am skeptical that it will be that easy. When I log onto the native system (not the vhd) the boot drive is C. When I boot from the vhd the drive letter is H. I will try DISK MGR & report back, but I doubt it will work since I could not access CONTROLS PANEL.

Do you have other advice?

Thanks

betaupsilon said:

I will try to use the DISK MGR to reassign drive letters, but I am skeptical that it will be that easy. When I log onto the native system (not the vhd) the boot drive is C. When I boot from the vhd the drive letter is H. I will try DISK MGR & report back, but I doubt it will work since I could not access CONTROLS PANEL.

I could not access CONTROLS PANEL to get to DISK MGR so I tried CMD mode. I could not change the drive letter through the DISKPART since H is the boot drive.

My system is a multi-boot system & all of the systems boot with drive letter C. However, those systems reside on physical partitions not a vhd. There must be an extra step in bcdedit that is needed to get the drive letter correct.

Any thoughts?

Brink said:

I'm not sure what else to do other than start from scratch to get it correct.

When you mean from scratch do you mean CLEAN install onto a blank vhd as in your tutorial or setup the vhd to boot correctly via bcedit? Although I have never used bootable vhd's I have heard boastings of how WINDOWS is flexible to boot several different systems using preexisting vhd's. As in my case the vhd is preexisting, not a fresh install. Are the claims I have seen misguided?