Comments on: Understanding and Working with VHD(X) Files https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/ Hyper-V guides, how-tos, tips, and expert advice for system admins and IT professionals Mon, 29 Aug 2022 12:31:31 +0000 hourly 1 By: Eric Siron https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3695 Sun, 05 Jul 2020 21:09:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3695 In reply to Roger Clark.

Sorry for the response delay, I’m not getting notifications for some reason.
I’m a bit lost on the mapped part. Whatever you do, make sure you are working directly against the problematic resource, not remotely from a client system. Do not troubleshoot more than one thing at a time.
If a VHDX is dynamically-expanding, then you can technically set it to any size you like up to the format’s stated maximum. But, it can’t expand beyond what the physical drive can provide.
You can relocate a VHDX to a physical drive or array with larger capacity. I don’t know if I have an article on exactly that because of the multitude of options to make it happen. You can use Storage Migration to move it from one connected physical drive to another. You can replace it inline with a block-copying tool, ensuring that the new disk has the same ID and in-system drive letters as the old one. You can disconnected the VHDX from its owning VM, then copy the file anywhere you want and re-attach it once it has a final home.

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By: Spence https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3658 Sun, 24 May 2020 18:12:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3658 Hello, And thank for this work!

Do you now how I can split my .vdhx in multiple files?

For backup, I use robocopy (fan of all natives solutions on windows).
But robocopy copy the entire file each time (logicaly…)

I hope if i have multiple .vdhx (I have about 25GB vdhx, and want about 25 files og 1GB for an exemple), I can backup and defrag more efficiency (220,000 fragment for my 25vdhx file… very very long to read…)

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By: Roger Clark https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3572 Sat, 21 Mar 2020 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3572 Eric:
have recently started supporting a server running Microsoft Server 2019 with Hyper-V. In Windows Explorer, one of the virtual drives shows it is full and the space is colored red. The physical drive that correlates to it is operable except one mapped drive is no longer accessible. Interestingly, when viewing it in Explorer it is listed but shows no information in terms of its size. When looking at its properties it displays used space and free space of 0.
I have read on your blog how to expand the file size of a VHDX virtual drive and see where it is necessary to also expand the size of the physical drive as well. My problem is that although I can easily expand the size of the VHDX from 1.6 TB to up to 64 TB, the physical drive is only a 2 TB SATA drive.
I would like to know how to resolve this issue. I suspect that the fact that the virtual drive shows it is full and red in color that this doesn’t have a direct affect on the physical data. But I wonder if the mapped drive that won’t open is affected by the condition of the virtual drive. I moved 120 GB of data from the physical drive but the status of the virtual drive was unchanged and the problem area is still inaccessible.
Is it possible to expand the virtual drive from 1.6 TB to something closer to 2 TB like 1.8 TB for example and then expand the physical drive to match it or is 1.6 as much as I can allocate to the physical drive?
If there is no more room on the physical drive, can I replace the 2 TB drive with a 4 TB drive and then expand the virtual drive to 3.5 TB and match the allocated space on the new drive?
If you can refer me to an article you have written that speaks to this or recommend a source where I can read to understand this I would be happy to receive that in lieu of you taking time to write out a response. Of course, if you are willing to answer this directly I would happily receive any information you would provide.
I have been reading some of your material on Hyper-V and have found it very informative. This is a new area for me. The information I have read so far from your blog has been very helpful.
I would appreciate any direction you would offer.
Thanks,
Roger

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By: Eric Siron https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3492 Wed, 19 Feb 2020 18:41:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3492 In reply to Jason.

This isn’t really about VHDX — you can mount a VHDX in all currently supported Windows environments and manipulate its volume(s) like any other. If it doesn’t contain the VM’s OS’s boot volume, you can usually manipulate it right in the guest OS.
The big deal is the change from MBR to GPT. That’s non-trivial. I don’t know of any supported non-destructive way to do that. I have seen third-party tools that claim to do it.

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By: Jason https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3484 Mon, 17 Feb 2020 17:45:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3484 Eric,

I have a VHDX which is partitioned as MBR. I cannot expand it due to MBR size limitation of 2TB. It is stored on a logical volume which is partitioned as GPT. Is there a way to convert this VHDX to GPT so I can expand it easily?

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By: Eric Siron https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3454 Mon, 20 Jan 2020 16:38:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3454 In reply to Sascha.

I have never tried with anything less than administrative privileges.

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By: Sascha https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3453 Mon, 20 Jan 2020 09:30:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3453 Hi Eric. Great Article.
I’d like to have a VHDX-disk as sort of a Secured-Storage-Container on a Windows 10 and I like to encrypt it with Bitlocker.
But at first, I have the problem, that the user with user-rights cant “mount” it. is there a special Access-right for that ? Failure is “you don’t have permission to mount the file” but as mentioned above, the Disk isn’t mount at all on my system.

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By: Eric Siron https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3434 Fri, 03 Jan 2020 16:11:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3434 In reply to Darden.

No, you can’t run a VM without an installed hypervisor. You could export a VM and carry it on a USB disk and import it on any PC running Hyper-V.

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By: Darden https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3433 Thu, 02 Jan 2020 21:43:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3433 Thanks, Eric! If I want to create a Windows 10 VM that I can open on any Windows PC (without Hyper-V), can I do that? I want to put a VM on a USB to take with me. Networking is not a concern.

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By: Eric Siron https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/understanding-working-vhdx-files/#comment-3324 Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:58:00 +0000 http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/?p=9383#comment-3324 In reply to Fred Marshall.

Microsoft does not publish any repair tools that I know of. I would start by attaching it to another Linux VM as a secondary drive to see if it would work there. If it won’t mount at all anywhere, then the headers are trashed. I know that VHDX repair tools exist but I have not personally tried any.

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