I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
SP1 linked disks and which do not?



Thank you in advance for your time,
Jason M. Johnston

On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:19:01 -0700, Nametag
<Nametag@xxxxxx> wrote:

>I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
>data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
>external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
>Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
>hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
>SP1 linked disks and which do not?
>
>Thank you in advance for your time,
>Jason M. Johnston

To link a disk, it can't be in use by the host. REmove the drive
letter and you should be able to link to the disk.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Thanks Steve,
I read about that step and have made sure that my my drives are not lettered.
Is there a size limit to the drive that can be seen? (I know there is a
limit to the size of a virtual hard drive. That is not what I mean.
Is there a partician configuration that will not work?
I have one WD external drive that is seen by the vhd wizard and one WD
external drive that is not seen by the vhd wizard.

"Steve Jain [MVP]" wrote:

> On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:19:01 -0700, Nametag
> <Nametag@xxxxxx> wrote:
>

> >I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
> >data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
> >external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
> >Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
> >hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
> >SP1 linked disks and which do not?
> >
> >Thank you in advance for your time,
> >Jason M. Johnston

>
> To link a disk, it can't be in use by the host. REmove the drive
> letter and you should be able to link to the disk.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
> http://vpc.essjae.com/
>

On Sat, 5 Sep 2009 21:21:01 -0700, Nametag
<Nametag@xxxxxx> wrote:

>Thanks Steve,
>I read about that step and have made sure that my my drives are not lettered.
>Is there a size limit to the drive that can be seen? (I know there is a
>limit to the size of a virtual hard drive. That is not what I mean.
>Is there a partician configuration that will not work?
>I have one WD external drive that is seen by the vhd wizard and one WD
>external drive that is not seen by the vhd wizard.
>

I overlooked you're using VPC2007SP1, as of SP1, linked disks are no
longer supported. You can't mount them to a VM, only create them, not
even sure why they offer it as an option.
From release notes:
"No support for using a virtual hard disk linked to a physical hard
disk
You can create a virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard
disk by using Virtual PC. However, it is no longer possible to use a
virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard disk in a virtual
machine.
"

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/