Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

gkakas — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:23:38 GMT

Check this tool to create Hyper-V R2 bootable USB sticks.

www.cite.gr/cite.

Follows the technet article steps.

Don't trust me :-)

I think it works though, but I have tested it only on two machines.

cheers

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Zane Zaminsky — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:22:08 GMT

So, I like this solution and I currently run it. I have one question. When I built my usb stick, I used an 8GB stick--I followed the instructions, verbatim and now I would like to move this to a 16GB stick. (Allow more room for updates etc.) Any ideas how to move my Existing VHD to a new larger stick.? I really can't build a new one and change a lot of things, because my server is a domain member, the drive setup is all done and would be rather painful to move. I am sure something like DISK COPY will not be that easy, and I know I can grow the VHD using disk part. I will play with things but if anyone has a solid suggestion it would be greatly welcomed.

Thanks Double Z

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Bill Smith — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:24:43 GMT

Can you guide me. I have a Hyper-V virtual server that has been highjacked by a virus and the disk is full. I cannot "remote desktop" in to delete files.

Any guidance appreciated

bill_smith821@hotmail.com

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Ryan Nicholson — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:31:16 GMT

I've created my USB stick and intend to use it on a Dell pe1850. I powered-up the server, with the USB stick attached to the back, and it BSOD's with Stop 0x7B. What's strange to me is the absence of the words: "INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE" that are usually associated with this error. It seems that Windows kernel has not yet detected the USB port I'm on, and freaks. Should I install my Hyper-V installation differently? What do you think?

Thanks

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

adiwoc — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:37:35 GMT

what should the contents of the usb stick look like? Just the vhd I am assuming.

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Digital Camera — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:59:44 GMT

I prefer my method. With a small CDLive distributing Linux (like TinyMe or Xubuntu), with a current kernel, which could support many devices supported by the standard ISO persitent to change and get a fast desktop virtualization program (like VirtualBox), you work your fully virtualized.

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Crispin Wright — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:31:57 GMT

I tried to butcher this process a little to get a Windows 7 bootable vhd to load from an external drive on boot, but alas no joy. Even with the right GUIDs in bootmanager and after bcdedit editing, it wouldn't have it - get a STOP 7B inaccessible boot device bugcheck on boot, others have tried to repair the installation, but I dont think thats on an external vhd......It would be nice to be able to carry a managed dev environment around on a external HDD and be able to boot to it from any machine - system specific devices not withstanding of course....Thanks for the guide.

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Akuma — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:39:00 GMT

I prefer my method. Using a small CDLive of Linux distribution (like for example TinyME or Xubuntu) with a recent kernel wich supports many devices, putting that ISO to support persitent changes and getting a fast desktop virtualization program (like for example VirtualBox) you could have your work site totally VIRTUALIZED.

That's in fact how I actually work.

With a fast USB pendrive (one of Corsair, 33 MB/s. for read and write) with 16 GB. of space. I've a LinuxLive distro that can run on EVERY hardware and a Windows XP virtualized in VirtualBox under that distro. With 3D and 2D acceleration enable and due to the speed of the USB pendrive (like a real IDE disk), I can assure you that I don't notice the difference between a real machine and that wich I virtualized.

Everything goes fast, YouTube, 3D games, etc. and all from a only USB stick. When I finish working or I need to move to other PC, I just boot from it and I've my Windows XP running like always.

This gives you many advantages:

- Independence of the hardware: each time the CDLive runs on a different hardware, it redetects the changes and due to the persistence option, that changes are saved, so the next time you boot, it'll do it much faster.

- No BSOD: try putting Windows XP to run on a USB as host, you'll see that nice BSOD. I hope that with Windows 7 (and its indepedence from the HAL) a reduced version could come out (like the embbeded version) wich could make the job. But till now, even Vista show BSOD when going to other hardware. Not to mention the space that Vista takes.

- Easy Backups: because a VDI is a file like VHD, VMDK, etc., it can be easly copied to other place.

- NO conversion needed: VirtualBox can open VHD and VMDK files WITHOUT needing to converting them. Of course, you need to make the job relative to the hardware changes from one virtual system to the other, but that's something that even VMWare vCenter Converter does in background.

- Easy updates: when you have a new piece of hardware or need to update the Linux distribution host, it's very easy to do them without affecting the guest.

This is the next step and it's much better than ESXi USB for many reasons (like for example that you can't install the guest on a USB, also taking out an image from a ESXi of an individual guest IS A HELL of time, etc.).

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Eric Gray — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:39:04 GMT

OtherKevin: everything you need fits in that space.

The default (1GB) install contains other helpful items such as the vSphere Client installer (for your workstation), VM guest drivers/tools (not for ESX -- for Windows/Linux running *on* ESX), empty space for future flash image upgrades, and a core dump partition for analysis.

Eric

re: Booting Hyper-V R2 off a USB stick

Aaron — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:55:32 GMT

Wouldn't the moving of the key to boot a different system trigger the Windows Activation again as it senses a complete hardware change or if that only for consumer OS like Win7?