How to get bootable VHD into BIOS boot menu?

logon · 1 Week Ago

SIW2 said:

It has found the boot manager on the wd esp partition.

Not clear what the OP exactly did on disks, however it is precisely for this reason that I suggested to him to make the Disk 0 out deleting its Windows partition, so then his VHD would not boot and he would realize with his own experience the why and the how, and understanding better.

Given that to avoid getting messed up it would be preferable to call it Disk 0 rather than "wd". IMO

SIW2 said:

If you are paranoid, try disabling disk 0.

Paranoid?
Please note that being (or not) paranoid has nothing to do with this.
Instead we're talking about getting the proof for the OP that a VHD cannot boot with an ESP partition and without a supported Windows "system".

SIW2 said:

try disabling disk 0.

Since the OP has stated more than once that he doesn't want to physically remove his NVM (Disk 0) just because it would be too complicated and not worth it, I simply agree with him.
On the other hand, if you know of a way (if it's not there in the BIOS) in order to disable an NVM without physically reaching it please let us know.

SIW2 said:

imaging your os , deleting the partition and then restoring the image is not a good idea.

I guess that you are probably referring to the fact that the OP's Disk 0 is an SSD, but if we had to worry too much about its wear then we might as well go back to HDDs, in my opinion.
IF that were the case, now that would seem a bit "paranoid" to me.
However, just as an example, when I do my tests I then perform a disk image restoring even some times in a single day, what would be the issue?

SIW2 said:

If you really must, you could image the tiny esp partition on the os disk. Then delete it.

Please note that deleting the ESP partition on Disk 0 proves absolutely nothing, just because the Disk 1 also contains its ESP partition and if the OP has worked well he has just created and set EFI and BCD files in order to pointing out to his VHD file.

SIW2 said:

When you are satisfied bios has successfully booted the vhd from the boot manager on the wd esp partition, restore the tiny image of the esp to the os disk .

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all for me.

SIW2 · 1 Week Ago

F11 is the one time boot menu.

Pentagon · 1 Week Ago

What is the sense of nonsense?
Last year I was nominated for a stupidity-award. So that's why I ask!

1. A C-Partition size of 1862 GB and a Recovery-Partition of 509 MB demonstrates his knowledge.
2. To clone such a disk to create a VMDX is a stupid idea. There are faster and easier ways to get it.
3. To give it a usefull sense you have to repeat the step every month. Otherwise there is absolutely no advantage.
4. The "shit" that can happen during step 3 is enormous and has to be considered.
5. What is the advantage of a VMDX to a monthly Backup of (C:) and an immediate RECOVERY to (H:)? In case of a problem on (C:) you boot to (H:) and you go on.
6. To delete an ESP-Partition on disk 0 to verify the bootability of (H:) is a lousy idea. To delete just the EFI-Folder is safer to recover!
7. One of my customers is running appr. 1950 PCs. 1900 of them have a SSD-Disk size of 128 GB! In 2023 they had just 1 (!) disk failure!
8. So there is no room for paranoia! But if only that is true what you believe, you find your way. Sooner or later! That's the sense of nonsense. In my opinion.

logon · 1 Week Ago

Hi @Pentagon , I know what you mean and I partially agree with you on many things.
I just don't agree with some other things of what you describe.
In my opinion the point is not in stupidity or intelligence the point is in inexperience and lack of knowledge.
An ignorant person is not necessarily a fool.
And vice versa.

On the other hand I also know that suddenly appearing in a forum like a stranger among strangers always generates a certain reaction, always.
And writing a dozen posts for pure fun and for the pure spirit of helping someone (i.e. exactly the spirit of all those who post on any forum to lend a hand) just because someone, months after my single thank-you-post to a member of this forum, someone made a simple request to which I liked responding.
I only did it because I hadn't even looked at the forum dashboard and I received the notification by email.
I don't know why, but I took a liking to @tyeeman's simple request and then, as always, one post leads to another.
And here we are.

Just to give my opinion on everything else, frankly it doesn't matter to me and I also tried to ask why a 200GB VHD and I also told him that the Windows partition was unnecessarily huge, but I also know that he's learning his skills and I have no intention of giving him a rough crash course in trivial computer science.
Also because you made many assumptions, but in reality we don't know what and why he wants to do what he asked, or at least I missed it if he said so.
And anyway, as said, I don't care.
Cheers

- - - Updated - - -

@tyeeman

Back to the topic, for the sake of completeness I just finished doing the job I asked to do and and booting the VHD seems to work just as expected.
Instead of using an HD I used a 128GB SandDisk pendrive (which is seen by Windows as a hard disk rather than a removable one, I have another SanDisc 256GB pendrive which is also seen as a hard disk) and I disconnected all the various disks possible so that thei does not interfere in any way.

I followed the procedure described by myself (eheh) to the letter and used a "simple" VHD instead of a VHDX.
The VHD booted on the first try without even doing the automatic reboot that I had already observed and described here recently.
I also add some self-explanatory screenshots.
Cheers

In summary, there is no other ESP partition on any disk other than the one on the pendrive and there is no Windows partition on any disk other than the one applied with ImageX to the NTFS partition of the pendrive.

The VHD file that booted perfectly was stored in (D:\) volume of the 1st disk where I deleted the first 184GB partition where I had a Windows and I completely deleted all the partitions on NVMe.

Also, I completely disconnected with a button that cuts power to two disks in hardware RAID mode so as not to mess things up too much.
It would be very nice IF it could also be done for an NVMe SSD...

How to get bootable VHD into BIOS boot menu?-1-explorer.png

How to get bootable VHD into BIOS boot menu?-2-explorer.png

- - - Updated - - -

After further testing I'm glad to say I was wrong.

Thanks to @tyeeman 's request I had fun finding the following.

First please note that I regularly back up my installed Windows partition from an HDD (not SSD) partitioned in MBR-style saving it in ".vhd" format and then - in order to ensure the compatibility between both MBR and GPT backups restoring - I convert my VHD files from MBR to GPT style and then I keep them both until they become obsolete.

So for further investigation about VHD booting I formatted my USB Flash Frive in GPT-style, then I copied both VHD (not VHDX) files onto its root and modified both BCD and EFI files (existing only on the ESP partition of my pendrive) entries to boot VHD file.
And... at startup each of the two VHD (MBR and GPT) flawlessly boots without any other support!

Please note that my USB flash drive contains only two partitions (besides the 2nd one, MSR) the 1st (ESP) and the 3rd (Windows) and nothing else.
Both VHDs contain only a single partition and no other ones and the machine is without any disk connected while the NVMe has the whole space as unallocated.

Of course, only one of the two VHD files will be needed since I used two different ones (MBR and GPT) for test purpose only and completeness of results.

Cheers