Windows 7 - Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD

This is exactly what I wanted to do and tried it about six months ago but to no avail. I sought help in this forum but no response was posted. If you see anything wrong about how I did it, then I will try again.

Does "if the VHD is bootable" mean if the image was created correctly and there is no subsequent damage done to it?

You can mount a system image vhd as a second hard drive to an existing virtual machine, as told here.

Because of the difference in hardware setup, I do not believe it could be used as a boot disk, though I have to admit I've never tried because it just sounds so impossible

Kari

What "difference in hardware setup" do you mean? I want to restore an image onto a VHD drive in the hardware system on which the image is created. Another word there will be two identical installed Windows 7 system on the machine if it is done successfully.

Even if it runs on your host computer, a virtual machine doesn't use its hardware. The virtual machine hardware is emulated. If you follow instructions in this tutorial and boot your virtual machine to BIOS setup screen, you will notice it is completely different than your host.

You can see this also in Device Manager. Open Device Manager in your host and then in your virtual machine, and compare the hardware setups. You'll notice how different they are.

Kari

Kari,

I looked at the link. It appears to be about Windows Virtual PC which is a software but I am not using the software.

So then are you saying that if you have hardware compatiblity issues with Win 7, a VM running XP will most likely NOT solve the incompatibility?

I've got an old Nikon SCSI film scanner whose software needs the SCSI ASPI layer. Unfortunately, Adaptec pulled the plug on ASPI support beyond XP. I'm trying to decide if I should set up a dual boot system or try the VM.

Quite the contrary. For instance let's say you occasionally need some old 16-bit application which would never run on your modern Win7x64 rig. It's quite possible you can still run it on VM.

My wife likes Outlook Express which is a PITA to install on 7x64. She uses it on XP Mode without a problem. A friend of mine can only use his old Canon printer through XP Mode, and so on.

I have no experience in installing SCSI devices on XP Mode, but I would recommend to you to try it before setting up a dual boot system. If it works, you don't have to leave your 7 session just to use that application.

You can always setup dual boot if this fails; the only think you lose trying XP Mode first is about 20 minutes of your time.

Kari

Yes, it may be about 20 minutes IF Ivan05 knows his machine(CPU) supports XP Mode. If not some more time is needed. Unlike AMD cpu a lot of Intel cpus do not support XP mode.

That's very true. Good catch.

Thanks Kari and churin for the additional information. How do you know if it will support XP mode? Parts just arrived for my new build and now I'm even more confused. My old system is on it's last leg and I'm upgrading to a Core i7-860 and assumed it would handle the task with no issues.

Back to the VM question, the VM won't need to be "reinstalled" every time I want to use my scanner, will it? I'm assuming that I'd set up the VHD & VM once, then whenever I needed it invoke it from Win 7 as you mentioned, Kari. From reading through the tutorials here, about the only thing I may have to do is reattach the VM when I wanted to use it (if there was a reboot involved), right? Does this VHD need to be bootable?

I plan on doing a fresh install of Win 7 on my primary boot drive. Should I go ahead and partition out the drive before I install Win 7, leaving room for the VHD? Would I need to create the VHD prior to the Win 7 install?

Sorry for all the questions. I have to admit, I've been using, building and playing with computers since 1980/81, but I'm a noob at this and have no idea what to do. This place, as well as vistaforums, is a treasure trove of information, but there's so much of it it's almost overwhelming and to assimilate it all is a daunting task.

Thanks for any and all help.