Beginning with Windows versions 7, users of the Windows operating system now have the ability to create virtual hard disks (VHDs). VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) is a single file with the extension “.vhd”, which has the same structure and content as a regular hard drive installed on a computer.
When using this file format, it will be possible to install and run several operating systems on one computer. If a user wants to try working in another Windows operating system, then he usually installs the system on another logical drive of his computer, or installs Windows on a virtual machine.
Since I have my own website dedicated to computer topics, I often have to answer questions from visitors. On my work computer, in this moment, the Windows 7 operating system is installed, but I often have to answer questions about Windows 8.1, and soon I will have to answer about Windows 10.
Therefore, I use a VMware Workstation virtual machine on which the operating systems are installed: Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Mac OS X, Android. I also have a virtual machine running Windows XP Mode on my computer. If necessary, I launch the desired operating system in the program window, working in the main operating system.
Despite all the convenience of this method, it has a big drawback: when actively working on the main system, the operating system on the virtual machine will slow down. This occurs because the resources of one computer are simultaneously consumed to run two operating systems.
Using virtual hard drive will solve this problem. Another Windows will be installed on the VHD disk, without the need to run a virtual machine. Operating systems will be loaded on the computer of the user's choosing. Running Windows installed on a virtual hard disk will use all of your computer's resources, so there won't be any slowdowns.
At the same time, the main system will not be affected in any way, and the system installed on the VHD disk can be easily removed from your computer at any time.
In this article I will tell you how to create a virtual hard disk for Windows installations, as a second, third, etc. system on your computer. You can read about the process of installing Windows on a virtual hard disk in a separate article.
Please note that you can create virtual hard disks in any version of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, but only users of Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise, and Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise editions will be able to download another operating system.
How to create a virtual hard disk
You can create a virtual hard disk different ways: Using the Diskpart utility, or using the disk management tool. In this article we will consider the second option, as it is easier for the average user.
You can enter the Disk Management snap-in through the Control Panel, going through several steps. A shorter way: right-click on “Computer” or “This Computer”, and select “Manage” from the context menu.
After this, the “Computer Management” window will open, in which, in the “Storage Devices” section, you will need to click on the “Disk Management” item. The utility window will display all drives currently connected to your computer.
In this image, you can see that my computer has one hard drive, divided into two logical partitions (“C” and “D”).
You can access Disk Management more quickly. To do this, you will first need to press the “Win” + “R” buttons on your keyboard, and then enter the following command in the “Run” field:
Diskmgmt.msc
After this, the Disk Management window will open.
Next, you will need to select the disk on which the virtual hard disk will be created. Since the hard drive on my computer is divided into two partitions, I chose logical drive “D” based on the following: if the system is reinstalled, all data on drive “C” will be destroyed, and data on drive “D” will be saved, therefore, the virtual VHD disk will not be lost. If your computer has only one disk partition “C”, then in this case the choice of disk will be obvious.
Select the desired disk, then click on the “Action” menu item, in the context menu click on the “Create virtual hard disk” item.
In the Explorer window, enter a file name, and then click the Save button.
The file name must consist of Latin letters and numbers. I named the created VHD disk “win10” (Windows does not recommend naming the file). Attentive readers will notice that on the “D” drive of my computer, there is already a previously created virtual hard disk “win8”, on which I installed the Windows 8.1 operating system.
You can manually add the path to the virtual disk to the “Location” field, as shown in this picture.
You will then need to select the virtual hard disk size. You can select the desired size in MB or directly in GB. For normal system operation, I chose a size of 32 GB.
After this you will need to select the virtual hard disk format:
- dynamic expansion
- fixed size (recommended)
With dynamic expansion, the size of the virtual VHD will expand as data is stored on it until it reaches a fixed size.
With a fixed size, the virtual hard disk occupies all of the allocated space, regardless of how much space the data takes up on that disk.
After completing the settings, click on the “OK” button.
After this, the process of creating a virtual hard disk on your computer will begin, which will take some time.
After the creation of the virtual disk is completed, a new disk with unallocated space will appear in the Disk Management window.
There is no need to install the created virtual disk as a new volume. After this, you can exit Disk Management.
If you open an Explorer window, on drive “D” you will see the created virtual hard disk “win10” with the extension “.vhd”. A VHD disk appears on the system as a regular file, but in reality it is a virtual hard disk.
Now you can install the Windows operating system on this disk.
Next steps to install Windows
Now I will briefly talk about the next steps to install the system. First, you will need to burn the Windows image to an optical DVD, or create a bootable USB flash drive, for example, using the Rufus program.
Next, you will need to boot from the DVD drive or bootable flash drive, and then install the operating system on the virtual VHD disk. Detailed article about installing Windows on a VHD disk, you can read.
How to remove a virtual hard disk
If you need to delete a virtual VHD disk that was created in the corresponding partition of your computer, then you can easily perform this operation. The reasons for deleting a virtual hard disk can be very different: there are few left free space on a logical disk, this operating system is no longer needed, etc.
At the very in a simple way deletion, you will need to open in Explorer the logical drive in which this VHD disk is located. Then, you will need to select the virtual hard disk, and then select “Delete” from the context menu. In other ways, you can remove the VHD using the Disk Management snap-in, or using the Diskpart utility.
After this, the virtual hard disk will be removed from your computer.
Conclusions of the article
You can create a virtual hard disk (VHD) on your computer to install the Windows operating system on the disk, which you can use as a second operating system on your computer.
Please note that this option is available only to users of Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise, and Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise editions.
A lot of users of personal computers on the Windows platform often ask questions - what are virtual disks and how to create virtual disk. To increase the awareness of our readers on these issues, in this article we will try to fully cover the topic using specific examples.
Also in our article we will look at what is virtual hard disks and where they are used. After familiarizing yourself with the material, our readers will be able to easily create virtual hard drives and image disks in ISO format, as well as mount them onto a virtual device and burn them to DVD without any problems.
Virtual optical drive and its applications
The main purpose of a virtual disk drive is mounting images optical disks. To understand in detail why it is needed, we will look at an example where an image of a disk in ISO format will be mounted on a virtual DVD-ROM. For this example, we will use the Windows 10 operating system.
A nice thing for owners of computers with the Windows 10 operating system is that it already has a virtual DVD-ROM installed. Therefore, Windows 10 owners will not have to use third-party programs to mount images.
To mount an optical disk image into a virtual DVD-ROM, we need the image itself. For example, we will use image with the Linux operating system Ubuntu. You can download the image of this operating system on its official website http://www.ubuntu.com. In our example we will use the image 64-bit Ubuntu version 15.10, which has a size of 1.1 GB.
Having downloaded the image, you can begin to mount it directly. To do this, right-click on the image file to open the context menu.
The mounted “virtual disk” can be opened and all its contents copied.
As you can see from the example, we mounted an image from the Ubuntu OS on a virtual DVD drive. Essentially, we were able to do almost what we do with a regular and optical disc when we insert it into a DVD drive and open it, only in our version all the components are virtual.
Creating a laserdisc image
In the previous example, we looked at how to open an image disk in a virtual DVD drive. Now let's deal with the situation when you need to create an image of an optical disk. To create an image, we will need the DAEMON Tools Lite program, which must be downloaded and installed. It is also worth noting that in addition to creating different image formats, DAEMON Tools Lite can also mount a huge number of formats into its own virtual DVD drive. After installing the program DAEMON Tools Lite In Explorer you will notice a new drive named ""
This “” is precisely the drive of the program in question DAEMON Tools Lite. In this example, we will create an image of the original installation DVD with the Windows 10 operating system. To make an image from the installation DVD with ten, insert it into the DVD drive. Now let’s run the utility and go to the “ New look».
In the utility window we find the button “ Create an image from disk" and press it. These actions will take us to the image creation window.
In this window, you can select the DVD drive from which the ISO image will be created, and also select the location to save it.
We will also select the image ISO format and confirm the creation by clicking the Start button, which will start creating a DVD image with Windows 10.
After creation, we will receive an ISO image file named “J_CCSA_X86FRE_RU-RU_DV5.iso”, which can be mounted or written to a regular disc and installed a new Windows using it.
The example shows how easy it is to burn an image for a virtual DVD-ROM using DAEMON Tools Lite. In the same way, you can burn images for all licensed Windows discs, be it XP or Vista. In addition, you can record images of games or software that will not run without a disc. In addition to the program DAEMON Tools Lite I would like to recommend other popular utilities that can create and allow you to open images of optical disks:
- Alcohol 120%;
- Gizmo Drive;
- WinCDEmu.
It is especially important to use these utilities on an OS that does not have built-in virtual DVD drives, for example, in OS Windows XP. In addition to XP support, each of these programs, including DAEMON Tools Lite, will be able to burn ISO images to DVD disk. In addition to supporting the ISO format, these utilities can mount other formats, including their own, which can be written to regular discs.
Virtual hard disk
A virtual hard disk is quite often used by IT specialists, as it allows them to solve many problems with backup, virtual machines and testing of various operating systems. Virtual hard disk is a container file that simulates the file structure of a hard drive.
Since such a disk is a file, it is therefore usually stored on a physical HDD or SSD. Starting with Windows 7, users now have the ability to create and mount a hard disk directly in the operating system.
Let's look at an example of creating a virtual hard disk using Windows 10. First, let's go to the " Execute"using the key combination Win + R and type the following command in it: diskmgmt.msc
This command will take us to the Disk Control Panel.
To create a new virtual HDD, you need to go to the " Action / Create virtual hard disk", which will open a window to create such a disk.
Starting with Windows 10, it became possible to create a disk with the format " VHDX" Unlike the "VHD" format, the " VHDX» can create containers up to 64 terabytes. Let's make our 100 GB virtual hard disk in the new format " VHDX", and also set the switch to dynamic creation mode, in which our disk will grow as it fills.
After setting the parameters of our hard drive, press the OK button, which will allow you to write it to the specified folder on the screw. Once created, the output will be a virtual hard disk named “virtual disk.vhdx”. From the image below you can see that our disk was automatically mounted, but it is still not visible in the system.
For the system to see our VHDX disk, it must be initialized. This can be done by right-clicking on the VHDX disk and selecting “ Initialize disk».
In the window that appears, do not change anything and click OK.
Now the simplest thing left is to select a file system and letter for our disk. To do this, go to it and select the item “ Create a simple volume».
After this, a wizard will launch in which you need to assign a drive letter and select a file system. After completing the wizard, the virtual hard disk will appear in Explorer.
From the example it is clear that creating a virtual HDD using OS tools is very simple, so we hope that you will no longer have the question of how to create a virtual hard disk. I would also like to note that with the created VHDX disk you can do the following operations:
- Encrypt it using BitLocker;
- Install an additional OS on it;
- Move and open it on another computer;
- Connect it to a virtual machine.
Computers based on the Windows XP operating system, which is still quite popular, do not support VHD drives. But don’t be upset, because in the utility we reviewed earlier DAEMON Tools Lite there is support for VHD disks and it Fully compatible with Windows XP.
Using a VHD disk in a virtual machine
Let's create a virtual machine based on the Windows XP operating system using the VirtualBox program. At the stage of creating a virtual machine for XP, you will be asked to create or attach a virtual hard disk, which will be used to install Windows XP on it.
At this stage we can attach a VHD disk, which we will create using Windows 10. Therefore, we will try to attach our 30 GB VHD container, which we made in ten. After creating the virtual machine, you can view the attached VHD disk in its settings.
If there is little space in the virtual machine on XP, you can always attach new VHD virtual hard disk. Besides, you can connect containers with various file data to the virtual machine for XP. In the same way, you can use virtual machine from other software products. For example, VHD containers can be installed on VMware Workstation products.
Bottom line
From the material reviewed, it is clear that the use of virtual drives and hard drives helps solve many problems much better, especially since even a novice PC user can figure out how to create them. We hope that our material will help our readers better understand the question of how to create a virtual disk and how to use it for work.
Video on the topic
Hello admin! My computer has one hard drive divided into two volumes. On the first partition (C:) Windows 8.1 is installed, and on the second partition (D:) I want to install Windows 10, but not just like that, but on a VHD virtual disk. Please explain how to do this quickly and easily? I read on the Internet that on a simple hard drive you can place a dozen virtual disks and you can actually install an operating system on each of them!
How to install Windows 10 on a virtual disk using a program WinNTSetup
Hello friends!
First, I’ll tell you what a VHD virtual hard disk is and why our reader wants to install Windows 10 on it.
Secondly, I’ll introduce another hero of today’s article, this is a utility WinNTSetup, capable of creating virtual VHD disks and installing operating systems on them.
Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is a file format that has a structure identical to a hard disk. In simple words, the operating system perceives virtual diskVHD is like a regular hard drive, but the disk VHD has several advantages, the most important of which allows several operating systems to simultaneously reside on one partition of a regular hard drive!
For example, we have a hard drive installed in our computer; in order to install five operating systems on this hard drive, it must first be divided into five partitions, but this is not at all necessary to do when using virtual disks. We will simply take and create five virtual disks on any hard disk partition VHD and install different Windows on them. We can do all this without leaving the operating system!
I propose to move from theory to practice and create a VHD virtual disk using the utility WinNTSetup, then the same utility will install Windows 10 directly onto the virtual hard disk, everything is quick and simple.
- Note: If you like to solve various computer problems, then WinNTSetup will come in handy more than once, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the descriptions of how the program works.
- Another article for you on this topic.
Preparing for work
Let's look at Disk Management on my computer.
The hard drive is divided into three sections.
1 . Hidden section System Reserved (Reserved by the system, volume 350 MB) containing files Windows boot 8.1.
2. Disk (C:) with Windows 8.1 installed (there is an ISO image of Windows 10 on the desktop).
3 . New volume(E:) - file dump. On it we will create a virtual VHD disk on which Windows 10 will be installed.
Note: Before starting, be sure to create a backup copy of the boot storage (BCD), in case, after using Windows 10, you decide to delete it, because after removing the system, the choice of operating systems ( Windows 8.1 or Windows 10) will remain upon boot.
Editboot CD (BCD) storage and removing unnecessary entries is very simple, but it is even easier to deploy a backup copy. For more details on this question, be sure to read it.
Windows 10 ISO image
Before starting the WinNTSetup program, find an ISO image with Windows 10 on the drive (C:) and copy all the distribution files to a folder or double-click on the ISO image with the left mouse and connect it to the virtual drive (if you are working on Windows 8.1).
My Win 10 image is located right on my desktop.
Windows 10 ISO image connected to virtual drive (D:)
It's WinNTSetup's turn
Download WinNTSetup can be found on my Yandex.Disk using the linkhttps://yadi.sk/d/xLGkpAOzhXCPcor on the official website
http://www.winntsetup.com/?page_id=5
Unzip and run the executable file of the WinNTSetup_x64.exe program (if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows).
In the main WinNTSetup window, specify the install.wim file located in the D:\sources folder of the Windows 10 distribution.
Click Select.
Select the file with the left mouse install.wim and click Open.
The Windows 10 bootloader is selected automatically by the program - Z: (the first partition, System Reserved, reserved by the system, volume 350 MB, hidden and does not have a letter).
Create a VHD file on which Windows 10 will be installed. Click the VHD button.
If you create a dynamically extensible the size of the VHD virtual disk, then after installing Windows its size will be small (several megabytes), but during operation it can grow to gigantic sizes and when data is deleted from it, the size will not decrease, this is a little inconvenient. It is worth choosing this type if you do not plan to work for a long time in a system installed on a VHD disk, but just want to experiment.
If you create a fixed size virtual disk VHD and select its size of 50 GB, then a virtual disk of exactly this size 50 GB will be created; when filled with files, its space will be filled, and when deleted, it will be freed, that is, everything is the same as in the case of a simple hard disk. I'll choose this option.
I indicate the size of the VHD file to be created and click on the View button.
In the Explorer window that appears, I indicate the location of the virtual disk to be created on the partition (E:), also give it the name Windows 10.vhd and click Save.
Hello.
In this article I would like to touch on two things at once: a virtual disk and a disk drive. In fact, they are interconnected, just below we will immediately make a short footnote to make it clearer what will be discussed in the article...
Virtual disk(the name “disk image” is popular on the Internet) is a file whose size is usually equal to or slightly larger than the actual CD/DVD disk from which this image was obtained. Often images are made not only from CDs, but also from hard drives or flash drives.
Virtual disk drive(CD-Rom, disk drive emulator) - roughly speaking, this is a program that can open the image and present you with the information on it, as if it were a real disk. There are quite a lot of programs of this kind.
The best programs for working with virtual disks and drives
1. Daemon Tools
Link to the lite version: http://www.daemon-tools.cc/rus/products/dtLite#features
One of the best programs for creating and emulating images. Supported formats for emulation: *.mdx, *.mds/*.mdf, *.iso, *.b5t, *.b6t, *.bwt, *.ccd, *.cdi, *.bin/*.cue, * .ape/*.cue, *.flac/*.cue, *.nrg, *.isz.
You can create only three image formats: *.mdx, *.iso, *.mds. You can use a lightweight version of the program for home (for non-commercial purposes) for free. The link is given above.
After installing the program, another CD-Rom (virtual) appears in your system, which can open any images(see above) which you can only find on the Internet.
To mount the image: run the program, then right-click on the CD-Rom, and select the “mount” command from the menu.
To create an image Just run the program and select the “create disk image” function.
After this, a window will pop up in which you need to select three things:
The disk whose image will be obtained;
Image format (iso, mdf or mds);
The location where the virtual disk (i.e. image) will be saved.
Conclusions:
One of the best programs for working with virtual disks and drives. Its capabilities are probably enough for the vast majority of users. The program works very quickly, does not load the system, supports all the most popular versions of Windows: XP, 7, 8.
2. Alcohol 120%/52%
Link: http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/downloadtrial.php
(to download Alcohol 52%, when you click on the link above, look for the download link at the very bottom of the page)
A direct competitor to Daemon tools, and many rate Alcohol even higher. In general, Alcohol is not inferior in functionality to Daemon Tools: the program can also create virtual disks, emulate them, and record them.
Why 52% and 120%? It's a matter of the number of options. If in 120% you can create 31 virtual drives, then in 52% - only 6 (although for me - 1-2 is more than enough), plus 52% cannot write images to CD/DVD discs. Well, of course, 52% is free, and 120% is a paid version of the program. But, by the way, at the time of writing, the 120% version is given for 15 days for trial use.
Personally, I have version 52% installed on my computer. A screenshot of the window is shown below. The basic functions are all there, you can quickly create any image and use it. There is also an audio converter, but I have never used it...
3. Ashampoo Burning Studio Free
Link: https://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/pin/7110/burning-software/Ashampoo-Burning-Studio-FREE
This is one of the best programs for home use (and it's free). What can she do?
Work with audio discs, video, create and burn images, create images from files, burn to any (CD/DVD-R and RW) discs, etc.
For example, when working with an audio format, you can:
Create Audio CD;
Create an MP3 disk (https://site/kak-zapisat-mp3-disk/);
Copy music files to disk;
Transfer files from an audio disc to your hard drive in a compressed format.
Video discs are also more than decent: Video DVD, Video CD, Super Video CD.
Conclusions:
An excellent combine that can easily replace a whole range of utilities of this kind. As they say, install it once and always use it. Of the main drawbacks, there is only one: you cannot open images in a virtual disk drive (it simply does not exist).
4. Nero
Website: http://www.nero.com/rus/products/nero-burning-rom/free-trial-download.php
I couldn’t ignore such a legendary package for burning discs, working with images, and in general, everything related to audio-video files.
With this package you can do everything: create, record, erase, edit, convert video-audio (almost any formats), even print covers for recordable discs.
Minuses:
A huge package that contains everything you need and don’t need, many even 10 parts do not use the program’s capabilities;
Paid program ( free test possible for the first two weeks of use);
It puts a lot of stress on the computer.
Conclusions:
Personally, I haven’t used this package for a long time (which has already turned into a big “combine”). But in general, the program is very worthy, suitable for both beginners and experienced users.
5. ImgBurn
Website: http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=download
The program pleases you from the very beginning: the site provides 5-6 links so that any user can easily download it (from whatever country he is from). Plus, add to this three dozen different languages supported by the program, including Russian.
Basically, without even knowing in English, this program will not be difficult to understand even for novice users. After launch, you will see a window with all the features and functions that the program has. See screenshot below.
Allows you to create images of three types: iso, bin, img.
Conclusions:
good free program. If you use it in combination, for example, with Daemon Tools, then the possibilities are enough for your eyes...
6. Clone CD/Virtual Clone Drive
Website: http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html
To the user's question, how to mount a disk image in the latest edition of the Windows operating system, number ten, there is a simple answer.
To do this, it is enough to use the functional feature of the system itself, which automatically eliminates the need to download and install third-party programs on your computer.
Everyone knows that disk images of the most common formats ISO, VCD (VirtualCD), IMG and MDS/MDF (DAEMON Tools, Alcohol 120%), mostly downloaded by users from the Internet, are made exact copies of the entire contents of optical or removable disks. Also, any files of their owner (training courses, games, collections of programs, OS installation disks, etc.) can be packed into the ISO format.
The function of mounting ISO/IMG images in Explorer was first implemented in the eighth version of the operating system. And this has become one of the best, useful and relevant innovations of the operating system. Of course, to obtain more advanced capabilities for working with disk image files, the user cannot do without an additional program installed on the computer.
Next command:
Dismount-DiskImage -ImagePath "Full file path"
will remove it safely from the drive.
There are times when, after installing the WinRAR archiver, image files are automatically associated with this program and, instead of “Connections,” are opened as archives. To eliminate this behavior, go to the archiver settings and uncheck “Associate WinRAR with”, or in the operating system settings, assign the default program to open this type of file.
Let's put an end to the instructions here! Still have questions? Ask in the comments.
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