Windows7 / Server 2008 R2 Virtual Hard Disk Boot

As you know Microsoft released the Windows7 RTM 7600, many of you all must be excited about new features and tools in that.

One of the best feature of windows 7 is Native support of VHD (Virtual hard Disk).

Virtual Hard Disk is already being used in Virtualization platforms such as Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005, Virtual PC 2007.

For the first time you will be able to install and boot Windows7 / Server 2008 R2 from a VHD in a physical machine. Let us see how to complete this tasks step by step:

1. Creating VHD by using Disk management utility in Windows 7

2. attaching VHD for the operating system installation

3. Installing O/S on the VHD

Task 1

Creating VHD by using Disk management utility

From the disk management utility we will be able to create, attach and detach a VHD


In this following option first select the path to store VHD. Then define the capacity of the VHD that you are planning to create. For this Demo i am creating a 80GB VHD.

Then Define whether you are going to allocate a fixed 80GB storage capacity for the VHD file or Dynamically let it expand later when ever you put data in to that VHD. If you select Dynamically expand option. It is recommended to select fixed size for productive environments. If it is a demo purpose, then you may go ahead with dynamic option. The dynamically expanding option will affect the performance slightly.


You will be able to identify VHD’s from the blue color Hard disk icon. Even you can partition the VHD and use it for data storage also.

Task2

attaching VHD for the operating system installation

After booting from installation DVD select repair option:


Then select Command Prompt


From the Command Prompt we will be able to enter the diskpart utility (Command line partitioning tool in Windows) to create, edit, delete partitions and VHDs.

Execute the following commands to attach an existing VHD:

Diskpart

select vdisk file=”c:\windows7_boot.vhd”
(give the location where you have already saved the VHD)

attach vdisk


To create a vhd from Diskpart:

create vdisk file=”c:\windows7_bootdisk.vhd” maximum=80000


After attaching the VHD exit the diskpart utility and type SETUP.EXE from X:\Sources>

Here we go! the VHD is available for installation.

This same method is applicable for Windows Server 2008 R2 also.