Configure Disks and Storage
Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Virtualization
A virtual machine can use three types of storage media:
Hard disks, both virtual hard disks and physical disks
CDs and DVDs, both physical discs and image files (also known as .iso files)
Virtual floppy disks
To make various types of media and storage available to a virtual machine, you must configure the drive for the virtual machine by adding or removing it, or by changing the media.
Note
At a minimum, a virtual machine requires at least one disk to provide a location to install the guest operating system. You can add or remove additional drives as needed. When you create a virtual machine, a DVD drive is added automatically.
Configure hard disks, CDs, and DVDs
To configure hard disks, CDs, and DVDs for a virtual machine, you modify the settings of the virtual machine.
Important
The disk that serves as the system disk must be attached to one of the IDE controllers. If you attach the system disk to a SCSI controller, the virtual machine will not start.
To add a hard disk to a virtual machine
Open Hyper-V™ Manager. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.
In the results pane, under Virtual Machines, select the virtual machine that you want to configure.
In the Action pane, under the virtual machine name, click Settings.
In the navigation pane (left pane), click the controller that you want to attach the disk to.
Click Add.
On the Hard Drive page, select the location on the controller to attach the disk.
Under Media, do one of the following:
Specify the location of the virtual hard disk (.vhd) file.
Specify a physical hard disk.
Click OK.
To modify or remove a hard drive or DVD drive
Open Hyper-V Manager. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.
In the results pane, under Virtual Machines, select the virtual machine that you want to configure.
In the Action pane, under the virtual machine name, click Settings.
In the navigation pane (left pane), click the hard drive or the DVD drive.
On the Hard Drive or DVD Drive page, do one of the following:
To attach the drive to different media, under Media, select the appropriate media.
To remove the drive, click Remove.
Click OK.
Configure the diskette drive
To make a virtual floppy disk available to a virtual machine, you must attach the virtual floppy disk (.vfd) file to the diskette drive. The diskette drive is always available and cannot be removed.
To configure the diskette drive
Open Hyper-V Manager. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.
In the results pane, under Virtual Machines, select the virtual machine that you want to configure.
In the Action pane, under the virtual machine name, click Settings.
In the navigation pane (left pane), click Diskette Drive.
Under Media, click Virtual floppy disk (.vfd) file and then type or browse to the location of the .vfd file.
Click OK.
Additional considerations
By default, membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. However, an administrator can use Authorization Manager to modify the authorization policy so that a user or group of users can complete this procedure.
Hyper-V does not support the use of storage media if Encrypting File System has been used to encrypt .iso, .vhd, and .vfd files. However, you can use files stored on a volume that uses Windows Bitlocker Drive Encryption.
Only one virtual machine can access a physical CD or DVD drive at a time.
A physical disk must be offline before you can add it to a virtual machine. You can use Disk Manager to take a physical disk offline.