VHD boot with Vista

  • Article

!!!! WARNING !!! – Do not use this if

  • You are not familiar with BCDEDIT
  • Do not have a WinPE disk to recover
  • You machine is your Primary machine
  • Do not have backup of your data

!!!! WARNING !!!

If you have Vista installed and now want to Run Windows 7 from a VHD file, then you will need to copy the Windows 7 bootmanager to your Machine.

The file is located in the root of the active partition, so in Vista you will find on your c: drive. All you need to do is copy the  bootmgr file from Windows 7 to your Vista machine at c:\bootmgr

Now you can copy the windows 7 VHD file to your C: Drive and use the following commands in an Elevated Command prompt.

  • C:\>DISKPART
  • DISKPART>SEL VDISK C:\VHD\Win7.vhd
  • DISKPART>ATTACH VDISK
  • DISKPART>LIST VOL (This lists the drive letters and mappings, assuming F: maps to the VDISK)
  • DISKPART>Exit
  • C:\>Bcdboot F:\Windows

This will give you a new entry “Windows 7” at boot time and you can switch between Vista and windows 7.