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

How to Create a Windows 7 VHD at Boot to Start with from Boot

   Information

This will show you how to create a Windows 7 VHD file at boot on an existing installed OS's (ex: Vista or Windows 7) C: hard disk or partition to be able to natively boot from the Windows 7 VHD at startup in the Windows Boot Manager.

   Note

This tutorial uses an example that will create a C:\(file name).vhd file on the C: drive/partition at boot that is used to natively boot from at startup.

You will be able to create the VHD file on any partition or drive letter that you like though.

   Warning

All Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (except Windows 8 RT) editions support booting from a VHD.

You must have either Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8 Pro, or Windows 8 Enterprise installed on the VHD to be able to boot from the VHD natively.

EXAMPLE: Windows Boot Manager
NOTE: You will be able to either select your currently installed OS (ex: Vista) or the VHD file (ex: Windows 7) in the Windows Boot Manager to start your computer with.

EXAMPLE: VHD file in your Current OS (ex: Vista)
NOTE: This is where the VHD file will be stored at on your currently installed OS (ex: Vista) to be used to boot from.

OPTION ONE

To Create and Add the VHD to Boot From

1. Boot from your retail copy Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise installation DVD/USB, and do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.
NOTE: To have Windows 8 on VHD, see instead: How to Create a Windows 8 VHD at Boot to Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Vista

2. When you are at the start of the Windows 7 installation screen, press the Shift+F10 keys, and go to step 4 below. (See screenshot below)

3. Boot into the command prompt from the Startup Recovery Options screen, and go to step 4 below. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You will use OPTION TWO at that link.

4. In the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

5. In the elevated command prompt, type list volume and press Enter. Make note of the drive letter for the volume that you want to create the VHD file on. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This will allow you to see what the drive letters are for each volume. They are not always the same at boot as they are in Windows.

6. Do either step 7 or 8 below for what type of VHD file you would like to create.

7. To Create a Fixed VHD File
NOTE: A fixed VHD file will allocate the entire maximum size (ex: 40GB) that you set below for the VHD file size.
A) In the command prompt, type the command below and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute the C drive letter in the command below for what volume (step 5) you would like to create the VHD on.

[B]create vdisk file=[COLOR=red]C[/COLOR]:\[COLOR=red]VHD-Windows7[/COLOR].vhd maximum=[COLOR=red]40960[/COLOR][/B]

NOTE: You can substitute the VHD-Windows7 name with any name you would like for the VHD file instead. You can also substitute the maximum size of 40960 MB for the VHD to the maximum size you want instead in MB (1GB = 1024MB).

B) Go to step 9.
8. To Create an Expandable VHD File
NOTE: An expandable VHD file will only be as large as the amount of data that is saved in the VHD file, but still can get as large as the maximium size (ex: 40GB) that you set below. For example, using this option, the VHD file showed only 7GB instead of the full 40GB. Even though the VHD file is expandable, you may need to install Windows Virtual PC to have a program associated with VHD files to actual see only the smaller size instead of the larger size for the VHD file.
A) In the command prompt, type the command below and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute the C drive letter in the command below for what volume (step 5) you would like to create the VHD on.

[B]create vdisk file=[COLOR=red]C[/COLOR]:\[COLOR=red]VHD-Windows7[/COLOR].vhd maximum=[COLOR=red]40960[/COLOR][/B] [B]type=expandable[/B]

NOTE: You can substitute the VHD-Windows7 name with any name you would like for the VHD file instead. You can also substitute the maximum size of 40960 MB for the VHD to the maximum size you want instead in MB (1GB = 1024MB).
9. In the command prompt, type the command below and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you subsituted the VHD-Windows7 name in step 7 or 8, then you will need to use it here as well. Substitute the C drive letter in the command below for what volume (step 5) you would like to create the VHD on.

[B]select vdisk file=[COLOR=red]C[/COLOR]:\[COLOR=red]VHD-Windows7[/COLOR].vhd[/B]

10. In the command prompt, type attach vdisk and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

11. In the command prompt, type exit and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

12. Close the command prompt window. (See screenshot above)
A) If you used step 2 above, then click on Next, and go to step 13 below.

B) If you used step 3 above, then continue on to step 14 below.
13. Close the System Recovery Options window. (See screenshot below)
WARNING: You must close it only. Do not click on the Shut Down or Restart button.

14. Click on the Install now button. (See screenshot below)

15. Check the I accept the license terms box and click on Next. (See screenshot below)

16. Click on the Custom (advanced) option. (See screenshot below)

17. Select the available option with the unallocated space that is the same maximum VHD size (ex: 40GB = 40960MB) that you specified in step 7 or 8 above, and click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you see the Windows cannot be installed to this disk warning, then you can ignore it. Windows 7 will still install on the VHD file.

18. Finish doing a clean install of Windows 7.
NOTE: You will pick up at step 10 at that link to finish installing Windows 7 on the VHD file.

19. When you restart or start the computer, you will now have Windows 7 to select from at boot to start natively from the VHD file. (See the first example at top of the tutorial.)

OPTION TWO

To Delete the VHD and Remove from Boot List

1. To Remove OS VHD from Windows Boot Manager List
A) Delete the listed OS VHD from the Windows Boot Manager in msconfig.
2. To Delete the VHD File
A) In Windows Explorer, navigate to the VHD file that you have created in step 7 or 8 of OPTION ONE above (ex: C:\VHD-Windows7.vhd), right click on the VHD file and click on Delete.

B) Click on Yes to approve deletion.
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Create and Attach a Virtual Hard Disk in Windows 7
• How to Unattach and Delete a Virtual Hard Disk in Windows 7
• How to Setup Windows 7 to Boot from a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)
• How to Fix Missing Vista Hard Disk Partition Letter in Windows 7
• How to Change the OS Name in Windows Boot Manager
• How to Change Time to Display Operating Systems at Boot in Windows 7
• How to Change the Default Operating System to Start in Windows 7
• How to Delete a Listed Operating System at Boot in Windows 7
• How to Use Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor
• How to Convert a VHD File to a ISO File
• How to make Windows Boot Manager Boot an ISO from your Hard Drive
• How to Create a VHD of a Physical Hard Disk in Windows 7
• How to multi boot with Partition or VHD using WIM ImageX

 

[Brink]

Hello Zoe Chan,

Could you give us more details at exactly what point it does not seem to be working for you?

Double check to make sure that you read all of the information at the top of the tutorial, and that you are following the steps exactly. One mistake made, and it will not work.

Are you using a retail Windows 7 installation disc?

Are you using step 5 or 6?

Did you type the commands exactly as posted with the correct spacing in it?

 

[Zoe Chan]

Dear Shawn,

I had follow everything and this is de screen shoot i got there....

I got Win 7 Ultimate 64 as my base, am trying to put Vista image on the VHD.

Is this possible??

Zoe

 

[Brink]

Zoe,

If you were installing Windows 7 as the VHD, then yes, but not with Vista.

Instead, you will need to use this tutorial below with having Vista as the VHD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/625-boot-vhd-using-windows-7-a.html

 

[Zoe Chan]

Shawn,

I had follow de steps and now am getting this VHD_Boot on my boot menu.

But now the question is.. how am I going to put in my Vista OS??

I try to boot from de Vista DVD but under the partition selection to install, there is no VHD...

BILLION OF THANKS!!

Zoe

 

[Brink]

Zoe,

In that tutorial, you would have needed to create the Vista VHD first using something like Windows Virtual PC, then use the tutorial to attach that VHD to run at boot instead.

 

[madmax012]

Hi

I used this method to install win 7 x86 in dual boot on my win 7 x64 laptop. I created the fixed VHD(40GB) on my win 7 x64 partition which is 100GB and had 60GB free.

Everything went great but I have only one problem. After the dual boot, both of my win 7 x64 and x86 take about 1min40s to 2 min to boot. It stays on the ‘Starting windows’ boot screen for too long. After booting everything works normally as before. Before trying this method out, my primary win 7 x64 took only 35-40 sec to boot.

Does anyone have a clue as to what might be causing this problem? Also I have another partition D for my data which has 180GB free. Will creating the VHD in my D drive instead of C drive solve this slow boot problem?

 

[Brink]

Hello Max,

It's sounds like there may be something that is not loading properly at startup, say a driver.

Enable boot logging in each Windows 7 as below in msconfig, then restart the computer and open the C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt log file in each Windows 7 to see if there were any drivers that did not get loaded. If so, reinstall the drivers to see if that helps.

 

[madmax012]

Hi Brink

i tried what you said but there was no ntbtlog.txt file in windows folder or even my whole C drive.

also after doing many reboots i found that this problem is completely random. For 2-3 reboots in a row my pc boots fast as it normally used to and for the next couple of boots it is slow.. i guess i will live with that till the next time I format my pc...

thanks for your help..

 

[Brink]

Well, that's incouraging that it's only random. You might run a startup repair to see if it may find anything and may be able to fix it if so.

 

[whs]

Hi Shawn,

In my quest to study the VHD possibilities a bit more, I got to your interesting tutorial and the following conversation. And I was wondering whether it would not be the easiest to use Wbadmin to create the VHD - or am i missing something. Unfortunately all my systems are Home Premium - so I cannot boot from VHD. But I am still trying to figure out how to restore that VHD image. Maybe using the Windows installation media and selecting repair would get me somewhere.

 

[Brink]

Hello Wolfgang,

I have not tried it, but I'm not sure that you could do the same as the tutorial with the Wbadmin command. That command appears to be more for backups.

 

[whs]

Maybe I am wrong. But what I got was a VHD that looked like an image. I think it is mostely used in the Windows Server edition - maybe for scheduled backups or images.

And that's what it says in your Wbadmin link

Enables you to back up and restore your operating system, volumes, files, folders, and applications from a command prompt

 

[Brink]

Yeah, I think that part may be for creating and restoring system images with the command. I didn't see an option to create a bootable VHD to run like a normally installed OS though.

 

[whs]

Understand - so the difference is in the capability to boot. This was not my focus as I do not have an Ultimate system. I am still working on the restoration of a Wbadmin image.

 

[Brink]

I believe so, and not being able to create a VHD other than a system image VHD.

 

[whs]

It works on Data Partitions too - not only system partitions.

 

[dsouza]

Hi There,

I followed the steps in this tutorial, created the VHD as expandable, but when I select the drive that I want to install, which is the one I have just created, and ignoring the message "Windows cannot be installed to this disk", I got an error saying that there's not enough space ... although I've created an expandable VHD of 80GB ...

When I exit everything and start my regular Win7 Ult N installation I can see the VHD created with a few KBs... but nothing has changed when looking in the bcdedit.

What am I missing?!? Do I need to create the VHD as Fixed rather than Expandable, as I don't have the Virtual PC?!?
Do I need to do it always from the boot, or could I do it directly from the Windows7?
Don't I need to format the VHD that I've just created?!? If so, how to?!

Many Thanks.

 

[Brink]

Hello Dsouza, and welcome to Seven Forums.

How much free space do you have left on the HDD that you created the VHD on? If it's to low, then it may not have enough working space to be able to install to the VHD.

 

[dsouza]

Hi Brink, and thanks for your reply, after an extensive search in your web site, I found that some had the same problem that I was having, I solved it yesterday, and didn't save the link. But I have the tutorial that helped me.

My laptop had 3 partitions, one for restore, with around 1.5Gb and loads of free space, the other a System Reserved with 100Mb and only a few Kbs left free and the C with around 232Gb with loads of free memory.

In the topic, someone said that I had to expand the System Reserved by shrinking the C partition to the left, and then add it to the System Reserved... the following tutotial helped me to get my head around it:
Dual Boot : Create Partitions Using PWBD

Once I added more 100Mb to the System Reserved the Windows 7 installation to the VHD worked just fine.

My goal was to install a clean Win7 into a VHD on the top of my existing Win7 Ult ... I will use this VHD as my Dev machine to study and mess around ... it took me a while, but I got it working now, thanks to your forum.

Many Thanks again, Dsouza.

 

[Brink]

That's great news Dsouza. Thank you for posting back with your results and solution.