Adding Windows 8 VHD to boot menu

Question

Those are the steps I've used to add a VHD image to the boot menu:

bcdedit /copy {originalguid} /d "New Windows 7 Installation"

bcdedit /set {newguid} device vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd
bcdedit /set {newguid} osdevice vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd
bcdedit /set {newguid} detecthal on

This worked beautifully with Windows 7 VHDs but Windows 8 VHDs don't seem to like it. It does appear in the boot menu but on selection my PC goes into Windows repair mode for the previous OS and then restarts.

I've also tried BCDEdit UI which is based on the process above. It works previously with Windows 7 VHDs but fails again with Windows 8 VHDs.

Is there anything I might have missed? I'm using Windows 7 as base OS in both cases.

Update: I'd preferably use a method that does not involve 3rd party software for security reasons(I know I'm being a little bit paranoiac here) and above all I need to be able to carry the VHD from one machine to another without driver issues. So a VHD that uses the drivers of another existing base OS would be ideal just like it was the case before.

Answer 1

1. You mount the VHD to say V:

2. As VHD is Windows 8 you have to place Windows 8 boot files to active partition. (Windows 7 boot manager cannot boot Windows 8 !)

   "Dual-boot Repair" utility can help - you click a button "Automatic Repair" and you are done.

You can also use following command to acomplish the task:

bcdboot V:\Windows

Answer 2

Scott Hanselman has done some excellent articles on this. Here is one, though it might be a bit dated (it was written for Win8 Developer Preview), the basic steps are still valid:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToInstallingAndBootingWindows8DeveloperPreviewOffAVHDVirtualHardDisk.aspx

Answer 3

I created a tool to create a VHD, apply the Windows Image and add it to the boot menu:

http://www.fiechter.eu/Blog/Post/40

Br, Adrian

Answer 4

Please check this article, I try it and I can boot from vhdx file properly on physical machine.

Answer 5

I added my comment to the actual script.

Add command: bcdedit /set {newguid} nointegritychecks ON

This will prevent windows from going into repair mode.