Booting VHD not working after clean install


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Im having a little issue with my dual boot after a clean install of Windows 8.1. Up to the clean install everything was working fine.

Basically I have a SSD which is my primary Windows 8 install, on my data drive I have a VHD of Windows 8 which I have all my PC games installed on. So when I want to play a game I reboot the machine and choose the VHD to boot from, so it uses all the PC resources as a normal build would do.

 

After the rebuild I wanted to add the VHD back into the Windows 8 boot manager. The following code usually works after mounting the VHD: 

J:\windows\system32\bcdboot J:\windows /s J:

However I don?t get the option in the Windows boot gui to select the VHD, it keeps just booting my default Windows 8 install from the OS.

So I stated playing with the boot manager in the hope I could recreate the boot manager.

 

Firstly I deleted all the boot entries using EasyBCD, I then rebooted into Windows 8 setup gui, hit shift+f10 and entered the following  

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bcdedit /set {default} hypervisorlaunchtype Auto
bcdedit /set {default} nx OptIn

After rebooting into Windows 8 from the SSD I entered the following after reattaching the VHD

J:\windows\system32\bcdboot J:\windows /s J:

And lastly to restore the Windows 8 boot gui I entered

bcdboot C:\Windows

However I still do not get the option to boot from the VHD.

 

Not sure if this matters but somewhere in the process my disk where the VHD resides is now showing as a simple volume rather then dynamic.  

 

Anyone else had this issue or has any thoughts, i'd appreciate the input.

Thanks... 

 

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Try opening Disk Management and "Attach" the VHD. 

It should initialize it for use under the new installation. 

 

While you have it attached, be sure to check that the drive is usable and working correctly. 

 

If there is a problem with the VHD itself, Disk Management should identify them when you attach it.

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