VHD boot with Vista
!!!! 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.