Hyper-V - Native Boot VHD

Kari · 23 Jun 2021

thename said:

Thanks. That is what I guessed had happened when, five minutes after booting it the next time, the internal screen content suddenly was duplicated on the external monitor.

Remember that a native boot VHD is like any other physical installation, requiring correct drivers. Windows Update works as usual, with one exception: you cannot upgrade Windows on native boot VHD.

Tutorial: Native boot Virtual Hard Disk - How to upgrade Windows

Kari

thename · 25 Jun 2021

In the linked tutorial : "...GPT partitioned VHD in native boot (can't think any valid reason!)"

Any reason to select GPT type when creating VHD for use in a HyperV VM?

glnz · 15 Oct 2021

Hey, Kari, Brink and everyone -- Here we are five years later, and I hope you are all well and five years wiser. Does this tutorial still work?

I have a Dell Optiplex 7010 from 2014±, with 16GB RAM, an Intel Core i5-3470, TPM 1.2 (which I have never turned on), UEFI but NOT secure booting, Win 10 Pro 64-bit and a Local account, and it is set to boot without a user account password. I just recently used Hyper-V for the first time and have successfully created a VM of Win 11 Pro. In the Hyper-V settings, I selected Enable Secure Boot and Enable TPM and designated 2 CPUs. I have also successfully activated that Win 11 VM with a Win 7 Pro OEM key sticker.

Do you think I can do a Native Boot from the VHD for this Win 11 VM?

Or am I risking damage to that VM?

Thanks.

jonnyOn7 · 16 Feb 2024

Hi Kari, I just found your impressive guide whilst hoping to fix some problems I've got with my native boot vhdx windows 11 builds.

Issue 1 recently began after a shutdown event seemed to get stuck. I should have waited, but I jumped the gun and forced the power off, corrupting the config, and next boot attempt has black screen and fans. I spent about a day key mashing, trying to reset without having to open machine and remove stuff to get to the CMOS.

One boot effort was successful, but issue returned when I tried to restart into safe mode to further diagnose.

It's an HP probook 640 G2, the primary ssd that houses the vhdx operating system images is actually HDD 2, via a disk caddy that replaces the optical drive. Original HDD has windows 10 home (non vhd) with another boot issue (I'd planned on fixing the MBR to retrieve data before a wipe, or maybe retain for testing or some other use).

Even if I can boot the machine (which isn't the case, presently) the issue seems to recur on shutdown, resulting in NO BOOT on next attempts to load machine.

🆘 In case anyone has any ideas on how to progress this, other than "just" remove cmos battery (easier said than done!)

Due to the fact that I was able to boot at least once since issue began, I'm hopeful I can at least understand how this was achieved.

Apart from long press power button, or trying with/without mains adapter, I don't know what other factors impact the boot. The boot menu and bios seem inaccessible, the usb boot media isn't used even when present (I have a winPE usb I made with this Aeomi partition program I used for some partition mgmt)

Posted on hp forum also... Any suggestions and further insights most appreciated!

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...s/td-p/8994221

- - - Updated - - -

Hi glnz, just noticed your "recent" query here after posting mine, I would say it's possible the hyper image can be natively booted from, but that may affect whether the vhd can then be used with hyper-v...

💡To test 🧪 can you copy the vhd, eg do you have enough space? Then you can try to boot from the copy, and try hyper-v'ing it, and revert to original if any issuee

cereberus · 16 Feb 2024

jonnyOn7 said:

Hi Kari, I just found your impressive guide whilst hoping to fix some problems I've got with my native boot vhdx windows 11 builds.

Issue 1 recently began after a shutdown event seemed to get stuck. I should have waited, but I jumped the gun and forced the power off, corrupting the config, and next boot attempt has black screen and fans. I spent about a day key mashing, trying to reset without having to open machine and remove stuff to get to the CMOS.

One boot effort was successful, but issue returned when I tried to restart into safe mode to further diagnose.

It's an HP probook 640 G2, the primary ssd that houses the vhdx operating system images is actually HDD 2, via a disk caddy that replaces the optical drive. Original HDD has windows 10 home (non vhd) with another boot issue (I'd planned on fixing the MBR to retrieve data before a wipe, or maybe retain for testing or some other use).

Even if I can boot the machine (which isn't the case, presently) the issue seems to recur on shutdown, resulting in NO BOOT on next attempts to load machine.

�� In case anyone has any ideas on how to progress this, other than "just" remove cmos battery (easier said than done!)

Due to the fact that I was able to boot at least once since issue began, I'm hopeful I can at least understand how this was achieved.

Apart from long press power button, or trying with/without mains adapter, I don't know what other factors impact the boot. The boot menu and bios seem inaccessible, the usb boot media isn't used even when present (I have a winPE usb I made with this Aeomi partition program I used for some partition mgmt)

Posted on hp forum also... Any suggestions and further insights most appreciated!

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...s/td-p/8994221

- - - Updated - - -

Hi glnz, just noticed your "recent" query here after posting mine, I would say it's possible the hyper image can be natively booted from, but that may affect whether the vhd can then be used with hyper-v...

��To test �� can you copy the vhd, eg do you have enough space? Then you can try to boot from the copy, and try hyper-v'ing it, and revert to original if any issuee

A vhdx file can be native booted or booted from Hyper PROVIDING there is an EFI partition in the vhdx file. Done it hundred of times
The easiest way to do this is install Windows using Hyper-V first and then add a boot entry for the vhdx to the host EFI partition afterwards.