Windows 10: Windows 10 native "Mount VHD" file association gets broken by Oracle Virtualbox

Windows 10 - I no longer have "mount" option for VHD's on r-click


This used to work.. - I use it all the time to edit my tennants and pre load data prior to booting..


What broke it: Oracle Virtualbox


the VHD file association has been stolen by Virtualbox so the file now has a pretty oracle virtualbox icon.. Ahh cute.. but totally unwanted and it breaks the smoth flow that win10 had when working with VHD's..


1/ How do i revert the file association BACK to the default windows 10 setting? so double-clicking a VHD mounts it as a drive letter in windows...

2/ How do i prevent this takeover on other deployments we need to make of virtualbox


Many thanks


David Nobby Barnes

:)

 

[SOLVED] Mount a VHD? How?

I used VirtualBox to create a 640MB VHD (virtual hard disk) named 'Palemoon portable (Linux).vhd'. (Note that the VHD is not a VDI.) I need to format it, but first, I need to mount it. But when I attempt to mount it (as Administrator) via Disk Managment's
'Action' 'Attach VHD' menu choice, 'Attach VHD' is greyed out and cannot be chosen. Note that the VM is not running, and that VBox is not running. Also note that I'm aware that, in Windows, I can format it solely as NTFS -- that's not an issue.

I've not found a system setting that would prevent mounting VHDs.

In elevated Power Shell:

Code:

PS C:\Users\Administrator> Mount-VHD -Path "c:\VMs\Mint\Palemoon portable (Linux).vhd"

Mount-VHD : The term 'Mount-VHD' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

At line:1 char:1

+ Mount-VHD -Path "c:\VMs\Mint\Palemoon portable (Linux).vhd"

+ ~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (Mount-VHD:String) [], CommandNotFoundException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

PS C:\Users\Administrator>

How can I mount the VHD?

With Regards, Mark.

 

Bitlocker VHD not mounting

When I try to mount my bitlocker-encrypted VHD file, I get the following error message:

Couldn't Mount File, Make sure the file is in NTFS volume and isn't a compressed folder or volume

When I previously and successfully mounted the vhd, I was prompted for the BitLocker password. But now there is no password prompt and I get the latter error.

How do I get this vhd to mount?

 

Windows 10 VHD Native Boot Installation--Officially Supported?

We run our Windows 10 dev environments using Native Boot/Boot to VHD. In fact, a couple of my co-workers are running Fall Creators update with no issues. The main things you need to look out for when using Native Boot are:

• VHD: Make sure you build the image with the correct generation for your hardware in Hyper-V (Generation 1 for legacy BIOS systems, Generation 2 for UEFI)
  
• Drivers: Some newer computers use M.2 drives/specialized RAID controllers for it's primary drive. A typical bare metal installation will install those drivers during setup, but since Hyper-V emulates a different set of hardware, the drivers
  won't be present.
  
  For example, on some corporate Dell laptops, they are using two M.2 SSD drives in a RAID configuration. The drivers weren't included as part of the standard Windows 10 installation. To get the VHD working with Native Boot, I had to download the drivers from
  Dell's website, and install them to the image's driver store using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool, which is built into Windows (E:\ is where I mounted the VHD in my host OS, and I copied the drivers to E:\Raid):
  
  dism /image:E:\ /add-driver /driver:E:\Raid\iaAHCIC.inf
  
  dism /image:E:\ /add-driver /driver:E:\Raid\iaStorAC.inf
  
  Once the drivers were installed in the driver store, I re-attempted Native Boot, the kernel was able to load the driver, the image booted successfully.
  

• Major OS updates have to be done in Hyper-V: With a Native Boot setup, BOOTMGR/NTLDR and your BCD configuration reside within your host OS partition. While Windows PE (Pre-installation Environment) can find that information, it only supports
  installation to a physical partition (VHD's aren't suported.) That being said, once you perform the OS upgrade in Hyper-V, you may need to re-install drivers, as well as fix your BCD entries as needed. I've also had issues with images not booting due to
  the host OS using an older/unsupported version of BOOTMGR/NTLDR. That can be fixed by booting into your host OS, mounting the VHD, and running the \Windows\system32\bootsect.exe command from your VHD against your host OS's boot partition (E:\ is where I mounted
  the VHD in my host OS):
  
  E:\Windows\system32\bootsect.exe /nt60 C: /mbr

Hopefully this information helps anyone else trying to get their VHD's to Native Boot successfully.