A Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is an image format which may contain disk partitions and file system and it is typically used as hard drive in a Virtual Machine. Now in this guide I will try to explain how you can create, initialize and attach a Virtual Hard Disk in Windows 7. Will try to be as simple as possible and that’s why I will tend to explain it with more pictures and less text.
CREATE THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK1. Now let’s start with it. First go to Start and then right click the Computer button and select Manage.
The second way to do this is from your My Computer icon in the desktop, just right click on it and select Manage (See the picture below)
2. The Computer Management window will be opened. At the list in the left, under Storage select Disk Management and wait untill it loads the disk configuration information. After this will appear all the disk volumes available at your PC. Then right click the Disk Management and select Create VHD.
3. New window will appear in front of you where you have to specify the location of the VHD and also the hard disk size and select the Fixed Size of the VHD and click Ok.
Windows 7 will create the Virtual Hard Disk in the given location (in our case it is created in Desktop) and it will be automatically attached.
ATTACH THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK
If the VHD is not automatically attached then you can do it by right clicking at Disk Management and selecting Attach VHD and after that you can continue to initialize it.
INITIALIZE THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK
As you can see in the picture below, after we created the VHD we also need to initialize it.
1. Go to the Uknown (not initialized) VHD and with right click select Initialize Disk.
2. In the Initialize Disk window you have to check the Disk in order to initialize it and continue by clicking ok. After this, you will notice that the VHD is now Online. Right click again and select New Simple Volume.
3. The Wizard for creating a new Volume will appear in front, so click Next
4. The wizard continues to the next step and asks you to specify the volume size. Enter the desired amount and click Next
5. Assign the drive letter.
6. Now the Wizard will ask you to format the partition, so it’s recommandet to continue with format. Select the NTFS file system, leave the allocation unit size Default and enter the name of the new volume. At the bottom there is an option to select between quick and full format. If you check the Perform a quick format it will do a quick format but if you want to do a full format the you have to uncheck this option. Click Next to continue.
The Wizard is completed.
7. After the Wizard is completed go back to the Computer Management window. You can notice that the new disk is ready and healthy.
You can check also if the New Volume appeared at My Computer along with other Volumes.
I guess this is the end. Hope you find this guide usefull.