Tuesday 3 April 2012

Start/Install your OS/Windows directly from VHD in your PC, laptop or server...

If you want to have a test, demo or productive environment without using VirtualPC or VMware Player/Workstation, you can start your machine from VHD only with few and easy steps....

What to do?
  • If you don't have an VHD you can create it using 2 procedures(if you already have it, skip this point)
    • From Disk Management
      • Start Device Manager and Create VHD, select the size and if you want it dynamic or fixed(recommended for best performance) size:
      • Initialize the disk, select MBR and press OK
      • Format Disk(Assign the letter that you want, the system file type and volume label
    • From Command Line(example of 16GB of fixed disk)
    create vdisk file="c:\disk.vhd" maximum=16000 type=fixed

    • Restart your computer with a installation CD of Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 7
    • Start the installation, select Language and select Repair your Computer
    • After the installer searches for other Windows installations, click on the blank area, outside the detected installations and click Next
    • Select Command Prompt
    • And on the command prompt type:
    • diskpart
      select vdisk file="c:\disk.vhd"
      attach vdisk
      list disk
      exit
    • Close the Command Prompt window using the cross button
    • Close the Windows Recovery Option Windows using the cross button
    • Continue with the installation as usual selecting Custom installation
    • Then you can see the VHD disk as another phisical disk....
    ...select it and eNjOy!!!

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