Thanks. I'm curious how you boot the VHD if the drive containing your Windows fails. In that case there would be no boot menu for the VHD.
That may be true. I would have to test it by taking out my m.2 C drive I guess. Pressing F11 (for me) should bring up my boot device menu at startup. I would hope to see my VHD in there. I can try that pretty easy.
The booted OS assigns the drive letters. So when Win11 boots it assigns C: drive to itself. So when the VHDX OS boots it assigns C: drive to itself. When the computer is turned off, there are no drive letters as there is no booted OS. No C: drive when the computer is turned off. If you remove the OS drive from the computer you are not holding the C: drive in your hand.
Yes, I agree, I was saying that IFW knew the image was from a C drive backup and did not want to restore that to a currently running C drive, the VHD, without rebooting. I didn't even know it could do that and I don't know what happens then but I don't think I want to try because my C drive is ok for now.
Yes, you are right. My VHD is not showing after pressing F11 and getting into the boot menu. I did get the choice when the Windows boot menu comes up though. So you disconnected your Win11 drive which would be the same as me removing my C: m.2 drive from it's mount? If yes, I'll have to look into how to get the VHD to show in the Windows menu when C: had failed. A challenge!
I vaguely remember that we may have to boot into the VHD and then run "bcdboot c:\windows". That may do it.
This is what I did. Adapted from... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...al-hard-disk-to-the-boot-menu?view=windows-11 In Win11 open IFW Restore, Normal Add Virtual Drive windows.vhdx Yes VHDX - Dynamic Expanding 100 GiB Navigate to the backup file you want to restore Only choose the Windows partition, not the ESP, MSR or RE Restore to the Free Space in the Virtual drive etc for the restore I created windows.vhdx on another drive in a data partition. Booted from a TBWinRE UFD Used TeraByte Explorer (in Scripts) to delete ESP, MSR, Win11 and RE partitions from my main drive. This is equivalent to a drive failure or removing the drive. You can just remove the M.2 drive. You don't need to delete these partitions. I didn't want to open my case. From a Command Prompt diskpart list disk select disk 0 (disk 0 was the blank disk I subsequently used for the Virtual OS) clean convert gpt create partition efi size=100 format quick fs=fat32 label="System" assign letter="S" create partition msr size=16 create partition primary format quick fs=ntfs label="Main" assign letter="M" exit Used TeraByte Explorer to copy windows.vhdx to M:\ (the Main partition) From a Command Prompt diskpart select vdisk file=M:\windows.vhdx attach vdisk list volume select volume 7 assign letter="V" exit From a Command Prompt V: cd v:\windows\system32 bcdboot v:\windows /s S: /f UEFI Remove the UFD Restart The .vhdx should boot Edit.... added an "exit" and "list disk"
So you made a new vhd, simulated C: failure, created uefi partitions on a new disk, copied the new vhdx to the main partition, attached the disk to the system, found windows folder letter to add it to the boot menu with copying system files to the system partition. So does it show up on the firmware boot screen (pressing F11 in my case)?
The virtual drive boots spontaneously and I didn't have to press F12. But it does appear in my F12 boot menu and does appear in the BIOS Boot Priority order. It is called Windows Boot Manager on 120 GB SSD in my computer. In.... list volume select volume volume 7 was the virtual Win11 partition in my system. It is just called Win11, the same name as the original Win11. It was H:\ drive in my system and I changed the drive letter to V: When virtual Windows boots, the OS drive letter is C:
I guess, remove your M.2 after you have created windows.vhdx. Then do what I did. It's easy. You will need a blank SSD.
@Brian K Hi , may i ask you 2 questions (a and b) ? i have to replace a SSD NVMe of a laptop , i bought a new one , same brand same size SSD NVMe i will use image for windows about the restore I have created a drive image and i have stored on an usb drive to restore have i to? a) 1) should I enable or disable Restore Disk Signature ? 2) should I enable or disable Change Volume SN ? 3) should I enable or disable Change Disk ID and GUIDs ? b) 1) are there some option to avoid to re-activate windows 11 and/or windows 10 after the restore? Brian , it's a uefi and not mbr , but can i ask you since i have to do on another laptop with windows 10 but mbr (not uefi), what option do you suggest to restore the entire drive image? Thanks Brian
mantra, You don't have to enable those 3 options for your UEFI or MBR restore. I assume you have an Entire Drive backup image. All partitions on the drive. You will remove the old NVMe drive and install the new NVMe drive before doing the restore. There is no need to be concerned about Windows Activation. It will be automatically activated after the restore.
Hi Brian yes I always backup the entire disk , always all the partitions may i know only when you use these options in a practical task ? thank Brian , always so kind!
1. With UEFI, never. 1. With MBR, almost never. I can't recall ever using it. 2. When copying a Linux partition. 3. When copying a Windows partition where you plan to have both Windows partitions in the computer. The option prevents disk collisions where one partition is taken offline.
hi Brian good to know , if i have to do on computer with more than 1 ssd in case i want to copy windows partition or an entire disk (all the windows partition ) , have to enable all the 3 options ? thanks Brian
You will never need to use 1 and 2. You only need 3 if the old Windows partition and the new Windows partition are still in the computer. If you restore a Windows image to a new drive and the old Windows partition has been removed from the computer, you don't need 3.
Hi Brian ok , but you are talking about windows partition , let's say an entire drive windows backup (with the partition ) and restore to a not new ssd (not new ,because i have installed another windows for example 11 or 10 or 8 or 7 ) in a desktop with other ssd with an old windows present in this case option Change Disk ID and GUIDs should turn on , right? thanks
Option 3 needs to be used if you will have 2 Windows partitions in your system. Option 3 prevents disk/partition collisions.
hi in short more windows operations systems in the same disk right? i have read the manual on pdf is it really working ? just because i guess windows does read Code: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices thanks
