HelpSpot: Creating and Attaching Virtual Hard Disks

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Windows 7 also allows you to create and attach virtual hard disks (VHDs). You can
create a virtual hard disk by completing the following steps:
1. In Disk Management, select the Create VHD option on the Action menu.
2. In the “Create and Attach Virtual Hard Disk” dialog box, click Browse. Use the
Browse Virtual Disk Files dialog box to select the location where you want to create
the .vhdfile for the virtual hard disk, and then click Save.
3. In the “Virtual hard disk size” list, enter the size of the disk in MB, GB, or TB.
4. Specify whether the size of the VHD dynamically expands to its fixed maximum
size as data is saved to it or uses a fixed amount of space regardless of the amount
of data stored on it.
5. Click OK to create the VHD.
6. The VHD is attached automatically and added as a new disk in Disk Manager. To
initialize the disk for use, right-click the disk entry in the Graphical view and then
select Initialize Disk.
7. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, the disk is selected for initialization. By default,
the disk partition style is set to MBR (Master Boot Record) if the total disk size is
less than 2 TB. If you want to use the GPT (GUID Partition Table) style, select the
related option. Click OK.
8. After initializing the disk, right-click the unpartitioned space on the disk and create
a volume of the appropriate type. After you create the volume, the VHD is available
for use.
You can work with a VHD in much the same way as you work with other disks. Your
computer can boot off a VHD. You can write data to and read data from a VHD.
Additionally, you are able to take a VHD offline or put a VHD online by right-clicking
the disk entry in the Graphical view and selecting Offline or Online, respectively. You
can detach a VHD if you no longer want to use it by right-clicking the disk entry in the
Graphical view, selecting Detach VHD, and then clicking OK in the Detach Virtual
Hard Disk dialog box.
You can create VHDs using other programs. If you created a VHD using another pro-gram or have a detached VHD that you want to attach, you can do so by completing
the following steps:
1. In Disk Management, select the Attach VHD option on the Action menu.
2. In the Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box, click Browse. Use the Browse Virtual
Disk Files dialog box to select the location where you want to create the .vhdfile
for the virtual hard disk, and then click Open.
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3. If you want to attach the VHD in read-only mode, select Read-only.
4. Click OK to attach the VHD.

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