Executive Summary:
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 with SP1 comes with the VHD Mount (vhdmount.exe) utility. With this command-line tool, mounting and dismounting a Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image is easy.
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If you’ve joined the virtualization
revolution,
there are times when
you might need to
quickly mount a Microsoft
Virtual Hard Disk
(VHD) image to see its
contents, just like any
ordinary hard disk. If
you’re running Microsoft
Virtual Server 2005 R2 with SP1,
you already have a utility you can use:
VHD Mount (vhdmount.exe).
VHD Mount comes installed in the
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual
Server\Vhdmount folder. You can use
this tool from the command line; the
commands are pretty straightforward.
To mount an image, follow the syntax
vhdmount.exe /m vhd_path drive
where vhd_path is the path to the
.vhd file you want to mount and
drive is the drive letter to which you
want to assign the image. You need
to specify the colon
after the drive letter
(e.g., F:).
By default, VHD
Mount creates an
undo disk for each
mounted image, just
like Microsoft Virtual
PC and Virtual
Server do. If you want
to override this behavior and write
directly to the mounted image, you
can add the /f switch:
vhdmount.exe /m vhd_path drive /f
To dismount an image, you have
two options. If you want to save any
changes you’ve made to the VHD
before dismounting, follow the syntax:
vhdmount.exe /u /c vhd_path
If you don’t want to save any changes
you’ve made to the VHD before dismounting,
use this syntax instead:
vhdmount.exe /u /d vhd_path
Note that you need administrative
rights to run VHD Mount.