Windows 10: VHD BOOT INITIALIZATION FAILED

Hello, I have a problem with booting in windows, I tried to do dual boot on windows 8.1 and windows 11 and when I tried to enter windows 8.1 it gave me a crash and it is blocked in Preparing Automatic Repair, that is, it does not move, it does not give me the menu to select

:)

 

Windows 10 VHD Native Boot Installation--Officially Supported?

Is booting Windows 10 from a vhd (or vhdx) file officially supported by Microsoft? I know there were lots of articles about running the Windows 10 technical preview by using Boot From VHD, but I have been unable to find a listing of Windows 10 features
that shows that it officially supports this feature. It is well-known that a vhd-booted Windows 8.1 installation cannot be upgraded directly to Windows 10 (as was also true when upgrading from 8 to 8.1). Does anybody know the "status" of VHD Native Boot
going forward?

 

Windows 10 VHD Native Boot Installation--Officially Supported?

I apologize for not seeing your reference and leaving an incomplete solution ;

Not sure where you are at in this so I am providing a breakdown with an overview.

It appears they do not mention Windows 10, however the mention Windows 8 to using the .vhdx file format.
Hope this helps:

I am just now getting to exploring the use of VHDs for booting some Virtual machines.

I have included a more complete background on VHDs for you and others that maybe exploring this topic.

• 
  The local disk must have at least two partitions: a system partition that contains the Windows 8 boot-environment files and Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store, and a partition to store the VHD file. The .vhd file format is supported for native boot on a
  computer with a Windows® 7 boot environment, but you will have to update the system partition to a Windows 8 environment to use the .vhdx file format. For more information about how to add a Windows 8 boot environment for native VHD boot, see
  
  Download and install Windows PE (WinPE) so you can boot from a USB flash drive or an external USB hard drive.
  
• 
  The local disk partition that contains the VHD file must have enough free disk space for expanding a dynamic VHD to its maximum size and for the page file created when booting the VHD. The page file is created outside the VHD file, unlike with a virtual
  machine where the page file is contained inside the VHD.
  

This was from a recent Article :

Understanding Virtual Hard Disks with Native Boot
Last Updated: 5/4/2016;

VHDs with native boot are frequently used in the following scenarios:

• 
  Using disk-management tools to create and attach a VHD for offline image management. You can attach a VHD by using the
  Attach vdisk command which activates the VHD so that it appears on the host as a disk drive instead of as a .vhd file.
  
• 
  Mounting reference VHD images on remote shares for image servicing.
  
• 
  Maintaining and deploying a common reference VHD image to execute in either virtual or physical computers.
  
• 
  Configuring VHD files for native boot without requiring a full parent installation.
  
• 
  Configuring a computer to boot multiple local VHD files that contain different application workloads, without requiring separate disk partitions.
  
• 
  Using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) for network deployment of VHD images to target computers for native boot.
  
• 
  Managing desktop image deployment.
  

Deploy Windows on a VHD (Native Boot)

Last Updated: 7/20/2016

Create and deploy virtual hard disks (VHDs) with native-boot capabilities to test devices or to manage multiple operating systems on a device without re-partitioning the drive.

Creating VHDs
You can create virtual hard disks (.vhd or .vhdx files) using the DiskPart tool or the Disk Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC). You can create .vhdx files from PowerShell when you have the Hyper-V Manager Role installed.

You can attach the VHD so that it appears as a system drive that you can partition, format, and apply your operating system to.

Deploying VHDs
You can deploy a supported Windows image to an attached VHD using disk-imaging software such as the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool. The VHD can then be copied to one or more systems either to run in a virtual machine or for native
boot.

For more information, see
Download and install Windows PE (WinPE) so you can boot from a USB flash drive or an external USB hard drive.

On first native boot, the specialize configuration pass runs and computer-specific information is applied to the Windows operating system on the VHD. The instance of the VHD cannot be copied onto another system or run in a virtual machine after
the specialize configuration pass is completed. The original VHD that has a Windows image can continue to be copied and deployed to multiple computers, if the image has already been prepared for installation using the Sysprep tool with the
/specialize option. You can also use an answer file to prepare the image for installation by using the Microsoft-Windows-Deployment | Generalize setting. For more information about the
specialize and generalize configuration passes, see

Windows Setup Configuration Passes. For more information about how to use the Generalize setting in an answer file, see the Windows® Unattended Setup Reference.

The Windows Deployment Server role supports deployment of VHD image files in addition to .wim files. Windows Deployment Server automates the network deployment of VHD images for native-boot usage. Windows Deployment Server can be used to copy the VHD image
to a local partition, and to configure the local Boot Configuration Data (BCD) for native boot from the VHD.

 

Windows 10 VHD Native Boot Installation--Officially Supported?

We run our Windows 10 dev environments using Native Boot/Boot to VHD. In fact, a couple of my co-workers are running Fall Creators update with no issues. The main things you need to look out for when using Native Boot are:

• VHD: Make sure you build the image with the correct generation for your hardware in Hyper-V (Generation 1 for legacy BIOS systems, Generation 2 for UEFI)
  
• Drivers: Some newer computers use M.2 drives/specialized RAID controllers for it's primary drive. A typical bare metal installation will install those drivers during setup, but since Hyper-V emulates a different set of hardware, the drivers
  won't be present.
  
  For example, on some corporate Dell laptops, they are using two M.2 SSD drives in a RAID configuration. The drivers weren't included as part of the standard Windows 10 installation. To get the VHD working with Native Boot, I had to download the drivers from
  Dell's website, and install them to the image's driver store using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool, which is built into Windows (E:\ is where I mounted the VHD in my host OS, and I copied the drivers to E:\Raid):
  
  dism /image:E:\ /add-driver /driver:E:\Raid\iaAHCIC.inf
  
  dism /image:E:\ /add-driver /driver:E:\Raid\iaStorAC.inf
  
  Once the drivers were installed in the driver store, I re-attempted Native Boot, the kernel was able to load the driver, the image booted successfully.
  

• Major OS updates have to be done in Hyper-V: With a Native Boot setup, BOOTMGR/NTLDR and your BCD configuration reside within your host OS partition. While Windows PE (Pre-installation Environment) can find that information, it only supports
  installation to a physical partition (VHD's aren't suported.) That being said, once you perform the OS upgrade in Hyper-V, you may need to re-install drivers, as well as fix your BCD entries as needed. I've also had issues with images not booting due to
  the host OS using an older/unsupported version of BOOTMGR/NTLDR. That can be fixed by booting into your host OS, mounting the VHD, and running the \Windows\system32\bootsect.exe command from your VHD against your host OS's boot partition (E:\ is where I mounted
  the VHD in my host OS):
  
  E:\Windows\system32\bootsect.exe /nt60 C: /mbr

Hopefully this information helps anyone else trying to get their VHD's to Native Boot successfully.