Virtual drive on Hard Disk disappears after rebooting…….

…even after doing “Attach VHD” in Disk Management (before rebooting). After rebooting, each time I have to repeat to process of “Attach VHD” to see the drive in Explorer. And also, when I see it, I can see it only under “This PC” in the Explorer and not in the folder I placed it. Any ideas why all this happens ??

I have Windows 10 Pro 1709 on a new desktop.

Kari said:

First, attached virtual hard disks will always be detached when computer will be shut down (or restarted), and need to be re-attached after every boot. That's the default behaviour and there's nothing you can do for it.

A workaround is to create a DISKPART script to be run every time you sign in to Windows to attach the VHD and assign a drive letter for it.

Second, as the name say, a virtual hard disk is like a disk, behaving like HDD when attached to host machine. It will be shown as hard disk in File Explorer. If you mount / attach a VHD file E:\Data\MyVHD.vhdx on host as drive X:, the VHD file itself remains in E:\Data\MyVHD.vhdx but the virtual hard disk it contains will only be shown in File Explorer as hard disk X:.

Kari

Thanks for replying.

So if a virtual drive gets detached each boot and I want to use it as a drive for virtual machine, will I require to re-attach it after each boot before I start the system installed on that drive ??

Secondly: I don't see also the VHDx file under the folder I have placed it. Is it OK ??

Kari said:

If you have Windows installed on that VHD file, then it's another story. You just need to add it to Windows boot menu.

Question: After adding it to the boot menu, will I be able to start the virtual window without booting the PC ?? If I got it right after reading elsewhere, that's what the VM system does -- meaning, starts within the host system without requiring to reboot the PC.

Please tell do you want to boot to that VHD to run Windows?

Answer: Yes. But I want to run it directly from the host Windows without requiring to reboot the PC. I haven't installed there anything yet.

I am not sure I understand what you mean? The VHD file is not in folder where you created it?

Answer: I can't see the VHD file in the folder under Explorer. I can see it only when I do the “Attach VHD”. Then I can see it in the window which opens for choosing the file for doing the “Attach VHD”.

Question: Is it mandatory to place the VHD file only under the C (main) drive ?? I have placed it under other drive.

newu873


Kari

My Answers & Questions are within the quote above. Thanks

Hi there
another option is to install and enable VIBOOT from Macrium Reflect.

This will boot a virtual image. However you will need W10 PRO (not Home) though.

Macrium Software | Macrium viBoot

Kari also has an excellent tutorial on this as well

@Kari

great stuff

Macrium viBoot - Create Virtual Machine using Macrium Image | Tutorials

Cheers
jimbo

Kari said:

You seem to mix two totally different things, running Windows from a VHD in so called native boot, and running Windows on a virtual machine.

If you want to run Windows on a virtual machine, you need virtualization software to do that. My favorite virtualization platform is Hyper-V (tutorial).

Running virtual machines does not require host machine to be rebooted.

If you want to run Windows on VHD without any virtualization software, here's how to do it:



Video is from TenForums video thread, see the video and full instructions in this post.

Running Windows on native boot VHD requires a reboot. You select from boot menu if you want to boot to your host Windows, or to Windows on VHD.

Kari

Thanks for the explanations. I was thinking it's mandatory to create first a virtual drive for VM. I saw your extensive and elaborated tutorial, both textually & visually, about Hyper-V virtualization. Is there a way in the Hyper-V virtualization process to use a saved system image (suppose Windows 7) and restore it directly as an VM system which can run, without requiring to install the Windows 7 from scratch as VM ??

Anyway, I have to decide whether do it myself following your tutorial or let the Macrium Reflect doing it.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
another option is to install and enable VIBOOT from Macrium Reflect.

This will boot a virtual image. However you will need W10 PRO (not Home) though.

Macrium Software | Macrium viBoot

Kari also has an excellent tutorial on this as well

@Kari

great stuff

Macrium viBoot - Create Virtual Machine using Macrium Image | Tutorials

Cheers
jimbo

Hi,
Thanks for the advise.

I have Windows Pro. Does Macrium Reflect makes the job and gives a good working VM ?? Have you tried it ??