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Quick Fixed VHD Creation Tool

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A while ago I talked about why it takes so long to create a virtual hard disk, and a lot of people came back and said that in controlled environments they were willing to take the security risks / implications involved in order to have quick creation of fixed size virtual hard disks.

In response to this we have made a tool available that does just this:

https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vhdtool

This tool allows you to create fixed size virtual hard disks very rapidly.  You should be aware that the technique used means that it is possible to access data that was previously deleted off of the physical hard disk by running data recovery tools inside the virtual machine.  As such you should only use this tool when you can trust all users of the virtual machine.

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2009
    This is a great tool. Would this feature be available in a future version of Hyper V Manager? Say as an option with the necessary warning?

  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2009
    Awesome. This will be a massive timesaver.

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2009
    Hi, BTW, I just tried another test, creating a 5GB+ VHD, then installed Win2K.  Disk Management (in Computer Management) sees Disk 0 as a 127.49GB drive!! So, it's not just Bootit NG that thinks that the vhdtool-created VHD is a 130GB drive...  Win2K Disk Management also sees a 130GB drive :(...

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2009
    Hi, I'm wondering, has anyone actually used vhdtool.exe to create a VHD, and then installed, say, Win2K on the VHD, and had Win2K report the "correct" disk size?

  • Anonymous
    April 06, 2012
    It sounds like there are a lot of people that are misunderstanding this tool. Given that it is unanswered and first hit on bing searches I'd like clarify the behavior. Vhdtool.exe works by extending the end of file pointer of vhd. This gives it the great speed as its an index update but leaves the security vulnerability that the physical bytes are not zeroed out. Due to being a security risk it will never be shipped in a future release. After AttachVirtualDisk() has occured the vhd to be treated as a larger Win32_DiskDrive. Inside of that DiskDrive are many "partitions" (Win32_Volume) which will all contain the existing values. Until the volumes have been expanded there is no way to utilize the additional space. This is why the values do not increase initially inside of the OS. I dont know of these random tools people are using as everything is freely built into Windows. Right click on My Computer->Manage and navigate to Disk Management. Select the volume and request Extend Volume to solve those problems.

  • Anonymous
    August 19, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2013
    Any chance of getting this tool updated to created VHDX files?

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2014
    Hi ! When this tool will support VHDX format? Although the dynamic vhdx has excellent performance, some applications only endorse fixed vhd or vhdx disks.

  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2014
    Ben, the link you provided does not work - MSDN Archive Gallery has been retired and vhdtool is no longer available. I tried to search if the tool was mirrored somewhere but without success. Do you know if there are any chances the tool will be available again?

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2014
    Does anyone have a copy of the utility they can upload somewhere? Microsoft is no longer hosting the file.

  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2014
    You can grab a copy of VhdTool (VhdTool.exe - 58,368 bytes - SHA1: db2345fd48ca19dbfa5ed694724374ee814d3730) here: ge.tt/8Gorh3p1/v/0

  • Anonymous
    August 11, 2014
    Can someone please point me to a copy of this tool? It doesn't appear to be in any of the locations mentioned in the blog. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2014
    code.msdn.microsoft.com/vhdtool is a dead link. @Ben (hey, you have the same name as me), MS seems to have removed the link to your software. PLEASE release a copy of this outside of Microsoft, since they seem to love to remove old links. Upload a copy of the absolute latest version "VHD Tool 2.0 Final" to mediafire.com for me, please. And then post the download link here, or send it to me directly as an email attachment. My email address is: benhut1@gmail.com

  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2014
    community.spiceworks.com/.../501507-need-link-to-vhdtool-exe-download  the last link "Arefs" has the file you all are looking for.  

  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2015
    We at systola has written a tool that supports quick fixed VHDX files creation and resize. systola.com/.../VhdTool-Is-Dead-Long-Live-VhdxTool systola.com/.../KB100005

  • Anonymous
    December 16, 2015
    The comment has been removed