Windows 7 VHD image to HD partition?

Question

Hello all,

after installing Windows 7 to a VHD, is it possible to move the content to a HD partition?

Answer 1

Depends what you mean by move the content to a HD partition, but you can share host drives and folders with the guest OS so that you can move content either way.

Sharing folders is done throught the settings of the vhd through virtual pc

Answer 2

It would be possible (and fairly trivial) to copy the entire disk, byte-for-byte from a VHD to a HD, but moving a partition is usually very difficult, unless you put it at the same offset as it was before and fixup the partition table.

Answer 3

Well, you can of course just copy the VHD to the partition that you want it to occupy. Then you can mount the VHD and use it. You can even boot from it.

If you want to mount a VHD, you can either do it as an "action" through the disk management MMC plugin or through diskpart.exe. See the "attach" command in diskpart.

If you want to boot from it, here's Microsoft's explanation on how to set that up:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=80EDE31D-3509-407B-A896-0BEEA8705589&displaylang=en

If you unmount the VHD, you can then copy it to a different location if you want to move it.

Your question, however, seemed to be asking about whether you can copy the contents of a VHD to a non-virtualized disk. Of course. Just mount the VHD (by either of the methods above) and use xcopy or robocopy or a GUI, or whatever file copying method appeals to you.

Answer 4

This might be what you're looking for.

Essentially how to boot from a VHD