Unable to boot from a backup image vhdx

pilote321 6 Reputation points
2021-04-02T15:50:52.673+00:00

Hi,

I'm new to hyper-v and i want to boot an old image i made with the built-in windows 8.1 image backup. when i made the backup it created the following structure

84076-inkedcapture-decran-2021-04-02-112740-li.jpg

i followed this guide to make the VM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwIDp-cbbjg

and when i boot the VM choosing the big vhdx file as boot drive i get this:

84023-capture-decran-2021-04-02-112547.png

if choosing the small esp.vhdx file i get that
84044-capture-decran-2021-04-02-113704.png

then hitting enter or f8 does nothing, hitting Esc is getting me that:
84035-capture-decran-2021-04-02-113746.png

am i doing something wrong, or it's not possible to boot a VM from an image backup made by windows? When i made this image it was my main PC (not in a VM) if that make a difference. I saved that backup on an SMB share, but for some reason when trying to add the vhdx file directly from the share it would say that there was an error with permission, so i simplified that and copy paste the whole folder structure to my B:/ drive

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A Windows technology providing a hypervisor-based virtualization solution enabling customers to consolidate workloads onto a single server.
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  1. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-04-02T15:56:31.927+00:00

    Hard to say but might also try creating a new Gen 1 VM then when you get to step Connect Virtual Hard Disk choose Use an existing and point to the VHD

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  2. pilote321 6 Reputation points
    2021-04-02T16:26:39.683+00:00

    @Dave Patrick , I tried Gen1 and chose the VHDX file (i don't have any VHD file to make it clear) and i got the following error while booting:

    84077-capture-decran-2021-04-02-122123.png

    after that i saw that i was able to add multiple virtual drive to the VM so i tried only big VHDX then only esp.vhdx then big VHDX and esp.vhdx on controller ide 0 then swap the location within the controller ide 0 then put esp.vhdx on controller ide 1 while having big vhdx on controller 0 then swap both.

    basically every combinaison and i still get the boot failure. Reboot and select proper boot device

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  3. Xiaowei He 9,871 Reputation points
    2021-04-05T07:38:43.21+00:00

    Hi,

    am i doing something wrong, or it's not possible to boot a VM from an image backup made by windows? When i made this image it was my main PC (not in a VM) if that make a difference

    According to your description, it seems you backup a physical machine and would like to boot a VM from the VHDX file in the backup files. If there's any misunderstanding, please feel free to feedback.

    Generally, VM's can boot from VHDX file, but the VHDX file comes from another VM, backup or copied from another VM.

    If we backup a physical machine and convert the files to VHDX files, probably we'll get the boot failure. P2V is not recommended.

    Thanks for your time!
    Best Regards,
    Anne

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  4. Alex Bykovskyi 1,831 Reputation points
    2021-04-10T16:29:24.5+00:00

    Hey,

    If you still have a machine available, you can do a P2V conversion with either Disk2VHD or StarWind V2V Converter.
    https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-v2v-converter

    I assume that image backup has created 2 different vhds - one for efi partition and another for your C drive. That is why you are getting an error on boot.

    Cheers,

    Alex Bykovskyi

    StarWind Software

    Note: Posts are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

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