Windows 7 virtualized not starting in Hyper-V

Pavel yannara Mirochnitchenko 11,716 Reputation points MVP
2021-05-14T06:55:38.89+00:00
  1. I clean up and prepare physical Win7 machine for creating the disk.
  2. I run Disk2vhd, select only one partition and extract it as vhdx.
  3. I transfer the vhdx file to another physical machine with Hyper-V installed.
  4. I create new VM in Gen1 format, add the vhdx disk and start it up.
  5. I get Missing Operating System.
  6. I mount the VHDX to local disk manager and ensure it is MBR format.
  7. I start VM with Win10 ISO and run bootrec /rebuildbcd which tells me "the volume does not contain a recognized file system".

Question - should I go with vhd instead of vhdx? What are my chances to succeed in this?

Hyper-V
Hyper-V
A Windows technology providing a hypervisor-based virtualization solution enabling customers to consolidate workloads onto a single server.
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Sysinternals
Sysinternals
Advanced system utilities to manage, troubleshoot, and diagnose Windows and Linux systems and applications.
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  1. JiayaoZhu 3,911 Reputation points
    2021-05-14T08:50:25.457+00:00

    Hi,

    Thanks for posting on our forum!

    1) Your issue should not be about vhd or vhdx. The difference between vhd and vhdx files is just their supported disk size:
    96548-vhd-and-vhdx.jpg

    2) There are many reasons why you get the message "volume does not contain a recognized file system". And here is an article teaching you to troubleshoot and resolve your issue:

    https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/volume-does-not-contain-a-recognized-file-system-error/

    Please note: Information posted in the given link is hosted by a third party. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of information.

    Besides, in my experience, it may be because your disk file was corrupted during your transfer from win7 to win 10 (I guess). This is quite common when transferring files from an out-of-date OS version to newer ones.

    Thanks for your support!

    BR,
    Joan

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  2. Pavel yannara Mirochnitchenko 11,716 Reputation points MVP
    2021-05-14T10:49:24.78+00:00

    Yep, vhdx vs. vhd made no difference, same errors.

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  3. Pavel yannara Mirochnitchenko 11,716 Reputation points MVP
    2021-05-16T15:20:16.67+00:00

    Is it possible, that I did a misstake by not selecting all partitions available when I was capturing the physical machine disk layot during Disk2VHD wizard? I only selected C:

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