Windows 8 VHD - Create at Boot to Dual Boot with

How to Create a Windows 8 VHD at Boot to Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Vista​

   Information

This will show you how to create a Windows 8 VHD file at boot and be able to natively dual boot with your current Windows 7 or Vista installation with the created Windows 8 VHD.

   Note

Some Advantages of Using a VHD to Dual Boot with:

Using a VHD to dual boot with will act just as if the operating system was installed directly to a partition when ran at startup, but you will not have to have the VHD on a separate HDD or partition to do so like you would if you installed the OS. You could run the VHD as a dual boot say directly from within your Vista or Windows 7 partition. I think the biggest advantage of this would be for those that have a OEM computer where the OEM had setup 4 primary partitions on the HDD where you cannot create a new partition on the HDD to be able to install a second OS. Using this VHD method, they will be able to.

You will also be able to attach the VHD say in Windows 7 as a virtual drive, use the VHD as a virtual machine, is a lot easier to remove from a multi-boot installation, and a VHD will not mess with any of your current partitions or drives.

   Warning

All Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (except Windows 8 RT) editions support booting from a VHD.

You must have either Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8 Pro, or Windows 8 Enterprise installed on the VHD to be able to boot from the VHD natively.

EXAMPLE: "Choose an operating system" Screen at Boot
NOTE: This is what you will see now at boot or restart instead of the Windows 7 Windows Boot Manager screen to be able to select to start either Windows 7 or the Windows 8 from the VHD file.

OPTION ONE

To Create and Add the Windows 8 VHD to Boot From

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1. If you would like to create a backup of your Boot Configuration Data (BCD) to be safe, then from within your Windows 7 or Vista, open an elevated command prompt, type the command below, and press Enter. This will save your BCD backup as the MyBCDBackup.bak file in the C:\Windows\System32 folder.​

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bcdedit /export MyBCDBackup.bak​

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2. Boot or restart the computer from your Windows 8 Pro or Enterprise installation DVD or USB thumb drive.​

NOTE: To have Windows 7 on VHD, see instead: How to Create a Windows 7 VHD at Boot to Start with from Boot​

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3. At the Install Windows 8 screen, press the Shift + F10 keys to open a command prompt. (see screenshot below)​

WARNING: If you are using a language other than English, then see this post first.​

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4. In the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter, then type list volume and press Enter. Make note of the drive letter for the volume that you want to create the Windows 8 VHD file on. (see screenshot below)​

NOTE: This will allow you to see what the drive letters are for each volume. They are not always the same at boot as they are in Windows.​

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5. Do either step 6 or 7 below for what type (fixed or dynamic expanding) of VHD file you would like to create.​

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6. To Create a Fixed VHD File​

NOTE: A fixed VHD file will allocate the entire maximum size that you set (ex: 30GB) below on the HDD to be used by the VHD file. The VHD will only use a fixed amount of space (ex: 30GB) regardless of the amount of data stored on it. ​

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A) In the command prompt, type the command below, press Enter, and go to step 8 below.​

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NOTE: Substitute the D drive letter in the command below for what volume (step 3) you would like to create the VHD on. You can substitute the Windows8 name with any name you would like within quotes for the VHD file instead. You can also substitute the maximum size of 30720 MB for the VHD to the maximum size you want instead in MB (1GB = 1024MB).​

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create vdisk file="D:\Windows8.vhd" maximum=30720​

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7. To Create an Dynamically Expanding VHD File​

NOTE: A dynamically expanding VHD file will only be as large on the HDD as the amount of data that is saved in the VHD file, but is able to get as large as the maximium size that you set below (ex: 30GB). The HDD space used by the VHD does not shrink (compact) automatically when data is deleted in the VHD though. ​

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A) In the command prompt, type the command below, press Enter, and go to step 8 below.​

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NOTE: Substitute the D drive letter in the command below for what volume (step 3) you would like to create the VHD on. You can substitute the Windows8 name with any name you would like within quotes for the VHD file instead. You can also substitute the maximum size of 30720 MB for the VHD to the maximum size you want instead in MB (1GB = 1024MB).​

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create vdisk file="D:\Windows8.vhd" maximum=30720 type=expandable​

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8. In the command prompt, type the command below and press Enter. (see screenshot below)​

NOTE: Substitute the D drive letter and Windows8 VHD file name in the command below to the same one that you used in step 5 or 6 above.​

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select vdisk file="D:\Windows8.vhd"​

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9. In the command prompt, type attach vdisk and press Enter. (see screenshot below)​

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10. In the command prompt, type exit and press Enter, then close the command prompt window. (see screenshot below)​

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11. You can now finish doing a clean install of Windows 8, and select the unallocated space (ex: 30GB) that you created in step 6 or 7 above. (see screenshot below)​

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12. When finished, you will be in Windows 8 with Windows 8 set as the default OS to start automatically after the wait time. Restarting Windows 8 will allow you to be able to select what OS you would like to start with like in the example at the top of the tutorial.​

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OPTION TWO

To Remove the Windows 8 VHD from Boot

NOTE: This option will remove Windows 8, and leave you with only Windows 7 or Vista as an option to start.

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1. Start or restart your PC, and boot into Windows 7 or Vista instead of Windows 8. (see screenshot below)​

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2. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the location of the Windows 8 VHD file that you created in step 6 or 7 in OPTION ONE above, then either delete or rename the VHD file.​

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3. If you used step 1 in OPTION ONE and would like to restore your BCD back to how it was when the backup was created to be safe, then open an elevated command prompt, type the command below, and press Enter.​

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bcdedit /import MyBCDBackup.bak​

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4. Restart the computer, and you will no longer have Windows 8.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Boot from a VHD using Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows 8 and Windows 7 or Vista
• How to Delete "Windows 8" in your Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Vista
• How to Delete "Windows 7" in your Dual Boot with Windows 8
• How to Delete an Operating System Listed in Windows Boot Manager
• How to Do a Clean Install of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1
• How to Do a Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade
• How to Create a Bootable USB or DVD with the Windows 8 ISO
• How to Upgrade from Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, or XP to Windows 8 or 8.1
• How to Install Windows 8 on VMware Player
• How to Install Windows 8 on VirtualBox
• How to Choose a Default Operating System to Run at Startup in Windows 8
• How to Create and Attach a VHD or VHDX File in Windows 8
• How to multi boot with Partition or VHD using WIM ImageX

 

[Hopachi]

Good idea.
I don't really need this since I got a dynamically VHD working, but when I get the time, I'll test it out.

Thank you.

 

[fafhrd]

Does anyone know if VHD booting is going to be supported by all editions of Windows 8? - notably the plain, core edition that will be preinstalled on most OEM 'home' PCs.

 

[Brink]

Hello fafhrd,

Sorry, but no. Booting from a VHD will only be supported in Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5757-compare-windows-8-editions.html

 

[fafhrd]

Thanks Shawn

 

[Brink]

You're welcome.

 

[Hopachi]

Hello Hopachi,

I know you can with a fixed or expandable VHD file, but I've never tried it with multipart VHDs. It's not going to hurt to give it a try though. It either will or not.

I've tested it out: a multipart VHD cannot boot.

Multipart VHD are old fashion and only the ones made by Virtual PC on fat32 systems work for VM's on Virtual PC (thes same program that made them).

It was difficult to split one VHD because Windows GUI doesn't provide a way (and it's not even needed on NTFS disks).

VHD specification says that the file is simply (binary) split into chunks.

The test consists of a 2GB (static) VHD created in Win7 Disk Management.
Disk allready formatted to NTFS for testing but that is not important.

At the Command Prompt, Diskpart is able to select and assign the VHD (vdisk).
THEN:
I've used HJ-Split to split the VHD 2GB disk:

Two pieces of 1GB were made + a piece of just a few bytes (total 3 pieces).
They had to be renamed to: part1.vhd, part2.v01, part3.v02...

AND Diskpart doesn't recognize the splitted disk (says is corrupt):

Not even Virtual PC 2007 was able to use this disk (I think only his own splitted disks on fat32 are accepted) but I was testing on NTFS (Win7 x64) and not on fat32 (preferably Win98 where people say it should work):


Then I recombined the pieces to prove the disk is still intact:

And diskpart recognizes it again and selection + assign is possible.
And even VPC recognizes it again:


CONCLUSION:

A multipart (splitted) VHD disk is not selectable and not assignable (important part) by diskpart and therefore not possible to copy files on it or to boot with it.

This test was using the normal procedure (diskpart assign) of the tutorial. Maybe there are some other (too) extreme ways that can make this work but for now I'm aware of none, and splitting is not needed on NTFS.

That's it
Hopachi

 

[Brink]

Hello Hopachi,

I didn't think that it would. Thank you for posting back to confirm it.

 

[Hopachi]

You're welcome Shawn.

The test was just to make sure, since nobody else replied.

 

[cyberbiker]

I just tried to create a VHD on my Win7HPx64 laptop as a test. I named it a V drive and gave it 2048 MB. As you can see in the image, after creating V: I gave a "list volume" command and it didn't show up.

Any idea why it was not created?

 

[Brink]

Hello Cyberbiker,

Sorry, but only the Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise editions support booting from a VHD.

Virtual Hard Drive VHD File - Create and Start with at Boot - Windows 7 Forums

 

[flyingwild]

Hello,

I followed all your instructions and installed win8 retail version x64 into VHD. Thanks for putting up the tutorial. during the installation process the computer restarted and then it gave me the error message VHD_BOOT_INITIALIZATION_FAILED. I tried looking around for answer but could find none. some were suggesting that you need to change BIOS but they were not clear on what to change or where. I would really appreciate if you could help me. so basically, i have installed win8 but didnt complete the installaion because i got VHD_BOOT_INITIALIZATION_FAILED error in the first restart.

P.s. i choose dynamic virtual disk. i am currently running win7 home premium. my laptop is hp pavilion dm4.

 

[Brink]

Hello Flyingwild, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Double check to make sure that you have virtualization enabled in your BIOS. If that doesn't help, then check to see if there may be a newer BIOS (motherboard firmware) version available that addresses this issue listed in it's release notes.

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn

 

[flyingwild]

I check the bios and it was turned off. i turned it on but still got the same error message. i am not sure about the firmware update but i allow those things to update automatically, if that option is available.

importantly, i was impatience so i installed win8 on vmware workstation and it works great now. would have loved if i could have used VHD but vmware is not bad either. thanks for prompt reply. thought i would update you about the situation.

flyingwild

 

[Brink]

I'm happy to hear that you got it up and running in vmware. Thank you for posting back with your results.

The BIOS cannot be updated automatically. It must be done manually if it's needed.

 

[TerryE]

Shawn,

Something you may want to add, in case folks want to recover the old boot configuration to remove Windows 8 from tthe boot screen:

Before starting the Windows 8 install, from your Windows 7 or Vista system open an elevated command prompt.

Type in this command: bcdedit /export MyBCDBackup.bak

Add this at the end:

To remove the Windows 8 VHD boot option, boot into Windows 7 or Vista. Open an elevated command prompt and type this command:

bcdedit /import MyBCDBackup.bak

That command will restore the old pre-Windows 8 boot configuration.

 

[Brink]

Hello Terry,

Thank you for the additional method for a backup. I don't think it will really be needed for just adding/removing a VHD to boot from, but I added it as a backup to be safe option.

 

[crazbanditz]

Does this work if I am on Windows Vista Home Premium and want to install Windows 8 Pro using this? And what are the disadvantages? Will the system be slower or any of that sort? Thanks and I apologize for this noob question

 

[Brink]

Hello crazbanditz, and welcome to Eight Forums.

See my signature about asking questions.

Yes, you will be able to create a Windows 8 VHD on Vista to dual boot with. The red warning box at the top of the tutorial can give you more details about this if you like.

Since booting from the VHD like this is also a native boot, it's pretty much going to run with the same performance as if it was installed normally.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[crazbanditz]

Hello crazbanditz, and welcome to Eight Forums.

See my signature about asking questions.

Yes, you will be able to create a Windows 8 VHD on Vista to dual boot with. The red warning box at the top of the tutorial can give you more details about this if you like.

Since booting from the VHD like this is also a native boot, it's pretty much going to run with the same performance as if it was installed normally.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks for the quick reply. And I am very sorry I meant Windows 7 Home Premium. So this should work just find and nothing should happen to my computer aye? Cos yesterday I uninstalled and then used EASYBCD and it stuck at boot screen say windows recovery disk. Then I used my windows 8 disc and went to cmd to and typed in without ("") " bcdboot.exe C:\Windows ". I am afraid this would happen again so yeah... Thanks in advanced

 

[Brink]

It will not work with a Windows 7 Home Premium VHD if that's what you meant. If you are still using a Windows 8 VHD, then it will work.

Yep, as long as you follow the tutorial step by step, and no mistakes made of course, it should go fine.