Accessing VDI images under 64-bit Vista host.

[ppgrainbow]

How can I access the VDI hard disk image? I looked all over Google for a solution to this issue and I couldn't find one.

My host operating system is Windows Vista 64-bit and attempting to mount the Windows XP.vdi image with ImBoot will not work, because the 64-bit driver that I attempted to install is not digitally signed.

Is there any way to get ImBoot to work under 64-bit Vista? If not, are there any alternate open-source, freeware or shareware 64-bit utilities that are designed to either access the contents of a VDI hard disk image or mount the hard disk?

[stefan.becker]

Thats not easy. Use search function, there are several threads about this.

But starting the Guest and using Shared Folders from
Guest to Host is the better solution.

[ppgrainbow]

Thats not easy. Use search function, there are several threads about this.

But starting the Guest and using Shared Folders from
Guest to Host is the better solution.

Well...I looked at information regarding the 64-bit port of ImDisk and I found that the ImDisk driver is beta and have not been fully tested - plus, the driver was last updated on 6 June 2007 and people are unhappy to get ImDisk x64 to work on Windows Vista SP1 (64-bit). I personally believe that this might be a Windows Vista design limitation.

Update: I did some checking in the Event Viewer and I found these two log entries on 29 November 2008 at 6:37:15 PM:

Event ID 25: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\imdisk.sys failed to load
Event ID 1060: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\imdisk.sys has been blocked from loading due to incompatibility with this system. Please contact your software vendor for a compatible version of the driver.

One alternate option is that I either can try to create a hard disk image on Virtual PC or convert the drive to VHD format so that WinImage can read the contents on the hard disk image...but due to the size of the VDI image (64 GB), that would be too much of a hassle. Also, WinImage can only read contents of a NTFS drive and it cannot be converted back to FAT32 and it would be too much of a hassle to reinstall Windows 98 SE then upgrade to Windows XP again.

The best things is that until the ImDisk 64-bit driver gets digitally signed one way or another, it would always be best for me to use guest additions and folder sharing.

I always do that to transfer the contents off the VDI hard disk image to one of my two portable hard drives.

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Well...I looked at information regarding the 64-bit port of ImDisk and I found that the ImDisk driver is beta and have not been fully tested - plus, the driver was last updated on 6 June 2007 and people are unhappy to get ImDisk x64 to work on Windows Vista SP1 (64-bit). I personally believe that this might be a Windows Vista design limitation.

The ImDisk project has been updated recently and the 64-bit versions now share the same source code as the 32-bit versions and therefore updates are released simultaneously. The 64-bit versions have the same limitations and behavior as the 32-bit versions except that the 64-bit versions don't have the 2 GB limitation for RAM disks. Also, the 64-bit versions are now installed using the same install package as the 32-bit version.

The 64-bit versions are signed with a test certificate. Read the notes for 64-bit users below the download link on the home page for instructions about how to use it.

http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk

[ppgrainbow]

Well...I looked at information regarding the 64-bit port of ImDisk and I found that the ImDisk driver is beta and have not been fully tested - plus, the driver was last updated on 6 June 2007 and people are unhappy to get ImDisk x64 to work on Windows Vista SP1 (64-bit). I personally believe that this might be a Windows Vista design limitation.

The ImDisk project has been updated recently and the 64-bit versions now share the same source code as the 32-bit versions and therefore updates are released simultaneously. The 64-bit versions have the same limitations and behavior as the 32-bit versions except that the 64-bit versions don't have the 2 GB limitation for RAM disks. Also, the 64-bit versions are now installed using the same install package as the 32-bit version.

The 64-bit versions are signed with a test certificate. Read the notes for 64-bit users below the download link on the home page for instructions about how to use it.

http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk

Thanks for the link.

The ImDisk driver loaded successfully without problems. I also mounted the Windows XP.vdi file successfully without any problems too. But I have a couple of problems:

1. When I mount the Windows XP.vdi file as drive V, Windows does not recognise the format of the hard disk and tells me that the disk is not formatted and I have set the image file offset to 63 blocks. But when I load the "Windows XP" guest operating system, it works fine. How can I get the host operating system to read the contents of the disk image?

2. In the on the host, Windows displays "TestMode" on all four corners of the desktop? How can I get rid of it?

[Olof Lagerkvist]

1. When I mount the Windows XP.vdi file as drive V, Windows does not recognise the format of the hard disk and tells me that the disk is not formatted and I have set the image file offset to 63 blocks. But when I load the "Windows XP" guest operating system, it works fine. How can I get the host operating system to read the contents of the disk image?

You mean that you enter the 63 blocks offset manually? If you right-click the image file and select to mount it, are not the offset and partition size filled in automatically for you? If not, something could be wrong with the master boot record of this image.

Can it be that this image file is not a plain fixed size image file but uses some kind of compressed format where unused sectors are skipped?

2. In the on the host, Windows displays "TestMode" on all four corners of the desktop? How can I get rid of it?

As far as I know, you cannot. If you activate testsigning mode Windows displays this to make you aware that it will accept potentially anonymous drivers.

[ppgrainbow]

1. When I mount the Windows XP.vdi file as drive V, Windows does not recognise the format of the hard disk and tells me that the disk is not formatted and I have set the image file offset to 63 blocks. But when I load the "Windows XP" guest operating system, it works fine. How can I get the host operating system to read the contents of the disk image?

You mean that you enter the 63 blocks offset manually? If you right-click the image file and select to mount it, are not the offset and partition size filled in automatically for you? If not, something could be wrong with the master boot record of this image.

Can it be that this image file is not a plain fixed size image file but uses some kind of compressed format where unused sectors are skipped?

2. In the on the host, Windows displays "TestMode" on all four corners of the desktop? How can I get rid of it?

As far as I know, you cannot. If you activate testsigning mode Windows displays this to make you aware that it will accept potentially anonymous drivers.

To answer your questions:

1. I tried right clicking the Windows XP.vdi file and I found that the imdisk.cpl driver was not found in the Control Panel even though it's there and it's totally unclear if there was anything wrong with the master boot record of the VDI image.

2. I have a feeling that this is by design under 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. I didn't feel like having to mount the file under this mode after all. So the best thing would be to make a VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) clone of the original Windows XP.vdi image. The only drawback is that certain hard disk image utilities such as WinImage can read NTFS drives, but cannot write to them.

[mpack]

I just want to be sure... this .VDI file you are trying to mount using ImDisk is a fixed size VDI right? Not dynamic?