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Mounting a Virtual Hard Disk with Hyper-V

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You can mount a virtual hard disk under the parent partition with Hyper-V and a simple script:

VBScript:

 Option Explicit

  

 Dim WMIService

 Dim VHDService

 Dim VHD

  

 'Specify the VHD to be mounted

 VHD = "F:\Windows.vhd"

  

 'Get instance of 'virtualization' WMI service on the local computer

 Set WMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\virtualization") 

  

 'Get the MSVM_ImageManagementService

 Set VHDService = WMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Msvm_ImageManagementService").ItemIndex(0)

  

 'Mount the VHD

 VHDService.Mount(VHD)

PowerShell:

 #Specify the VHD to be mounted

 $VHDName = "F:\Windows.vhd"

  

 #Get the MSVM_ImageManagementService

 $VHDService = get-wmiobject -class "Msvm_ImageManagementService" -namespace "root\virtualization" -computername "."

  

 #Mount the VHD

 $Result = $VHDService.Mount($VHDName)

This is a very straightforward script.  You just get a MSVM_ImageManagementService object and call the "Mount" method on it.  To unmount the virtual hard disk you run the same code but call "Unmount" instead.

Note that the virtual hard disk will be offline when it is mounted, so you will need to online the disk under the Server Manager after running this script.

Cheers,

Ben

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2008
    You can also see some examples of Hyper-V WMI here: http://dungkhoang.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2008
    Of course, the vhd must not be in use by a guest at the time.

  • Anonymous
    February 24, 2008
    Thanks for the article as I am just starting with Hyper-V and this really helped me out a lot. So how do you take your vbs script and make sure that the mounted VHD's are set online?  That is the only problem I am running into. Thanks for any info.

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2008
    How to mount the VHD files on VM's using API's? (VB Script or Powershell)

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2008
    Hi, I've used the powershell script and got executed. I can see that the VHD file got locaked as well. Now, how do i view that VHD file from the parent OS? Thanks, Hari

  • Anonymous
    August 21, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2010
    Ben, when I call Msvm_ImageManagementService::Mount(), in some rarely cases, it took a very long time. My code is waiting 20 minutes, but sometimes, after 20 minutes, it's state is still RUNNING (4) I dont't know what's the exactly reason, and want to know how to do in the followling: Continue to wait, or Unmount() it and try Mount() again. Any of your reply is appreciated. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2012
    Thank you very much, Ben, this helped me and saved a lot of time and health : )

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2013
    Is this referring to older versions of Hyper-V (i.e. pre-Windows Server 2012)? On Windows Server 2012, I just go on the host system to the location where the VHD file is stored, right-click it and select 'Mount'. Much quicker and easier than any script. But I'm guessing you gave us the script because at the time you posted this capability didn't exist?

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2013
    Thank you! used the powershell script on a Virtual server with bluescreenofdeath.