Windows 7 Boot to VHD with differencing VHD
Hi all,I've been reading a lot Scott Hanselman's blog post about Windows 7 feature to Boot to VHD (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/LessVirtualMoreMachineWindows7AndTheMagicOfBootToVHD.aspx) and decided to try myself. But then I'm encountering some issues.Here is my scenario:Host PC is Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I prepared a VHD using WIM2VHD with Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. I put the VHD file at e:\base\base.vhd and then I set the VHD as read-only as I want to use the VHD as base VHD for other VHDs that I'm going to create.I created a differencing VHD using diskpart with the command:create vdisk file="e:\test\test.vhd" parent="e:\base\base.vhd"and created a BCD entry to boot to e:\test\test.vhd. I rebooted my PC and received the error message "The configuration for an element within the object is invalid in the boot configuration data store" for the BCD entry that I just created.And then I tried to find out what was the issue and my findings are:1. Base at e:\base\base.vhd, differencing at e:\test\test.vhd. This will fail.2. Base at e:\base\base.vhd, differencing at e:\test.vhd. This will work.3. Base at e:\base\base.vhd, differencing at e:\base\test.vhd. This will work.4. Base at e:\base\base.vhd, differencing at e:\base\test\test.vhd. This will fail.I want to know why there is such inconsistency in handling differencing VHDs when placed at different locations?Please enlighten me.Thank you.
March 9th, 2010 3:35pm

Another thing to add: in all 4 scenarios above, the differencing VHDs are attachable and accessible from the host Windows 7.
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March 10th, 2010 5:14am

Hello, It seems that the differencing VHD must be in the root path of the drive or same folder with the parent VHD. Thomas77
March 10th, 2010 12:46pm

I am sorry to take bingo-translater. You need to correctly identify the letter in Win PE environment. Take a look at How to quickly determine the drive letters in the Recovery Environment or Windows PE
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March 29th, 2011 8:31am

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