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I made an image with disk2vhd and unfortunately I chose VHDX instead of VHD. I didn't see any information about what to choose.

Anyway, now that file is all I have, the original PC is trashed. So I need to know how to run it as a Virtual Machine in Windows 7.

VirtualBox doesn't have an option to open VHDX and WM Converter doesn't have an option to open VHDX (or to convert to VHD).

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
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You can do that conversion with VirtualBox :

VBoxManage.exe clonemedium "input_file.vhdx" "output_file.vhd" --format VHD

Default Path to VBoxManage.exe

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\
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  • 3
    It looks like this is broken in VirtualBox 5.0. The report is labeled as "critical", but hasn't been modified in 7 months, so not very optimistic.
    – Wasabi Fan
    Feb 3, 2016 at 2:07
  • 2
    @WasabiFan - it works again in 5.1.4 (I just used it).
    – WiredPrairie
    Sep 10, 2016 at 22:23
  • Also, one can encounter the VHDX: Image has a non empty log which is not supported (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED) error message.
    – Bass
    Dec 25, 2017 at 13:12
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Before anything, make a backup of the original .VHDX, just in case.

You said you have Windows 7. In that case, you can easily convert VHDX to VHD with PowerShell.

Go to "Run..." (Windows + R) and type Powershell.

Then, in the PowerShell command line, type the command PS C:\> Convert-VHD –Path YOUR VHDX PATH –DestinationPath YOUR DESTINATION PATH

It should be converted then.

You can find additional information about the Convert-VHD command here.

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    Ok, I give it a try. But it says >> Applies To: Windows 8.1, Windows PowerShell 4.0, Windows Server 2012 R2
    – Bjorn
    May 10, 2014 at 16:01
  • @Bjorn - Powershell 4 will work on Windows 7.
    – Ramhound
    May 10, 2014 at 16:03
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    this is a cmdlet which only works in Win8/Server 2012 when Hyper-V is activated.
    – magicandre1981
    May 10, 2014 at 17:50
  • 1
    Hyper-V is not available in Home editions.
    – Álvaro González
    Sep 27, 2014 at 18:58
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    Even after upgrading to PowerShell 4.0 I just get The term 'Convert-VHD' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. on Windows 7
    – James EJ
    Mar 15, 2016 at 13:55
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To convert vhdx to vhd use the free StarWind V2V Image Converter

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  • Just tried it, only works on Win8 or above.
    – Simon Hova
    Mar 23, 2016 at 5:29
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I made the same mistake, when creating the Virtual disk from the physical with Disk2VHD, there is a check box at the top right (second down) that is ticked by default to create a vhdx, Remove this check and it will create a vhd instead.

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I managed to extract files from a Windows 10 VMDH "Windows Image Backup" and to write them to a Windows 7 machine: I installed Windows Server 2012 (free 180 days evaluation) in a virtual machine and connected it to my local hard disk via a network share. This way I could "mount" the VMDH backup and write the important files back to my local drive.

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  1. Open CMD as Admin, and type the following command to switch to VirtualBox folder:
cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"
  1. Then type this command to convert from VHDX to VHD:
VBoxManage convertfromraw "C:\Full-Path-To\image.VHDX" "C:\Full-Path-To\new-image.VHD" --format VHD

After that, I would prefer giving the result VHD image a new UUID by using this command:

VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid "C:\Full-Path-To\new-image.VHD"

Extra step I usually do when converting/cloning images in VirtualBox as it tends to show many errors when it finds 2 images with the same UUID. Unlike Hyper-V doesn't care for that.

Note: These commands mentioned above are case sensitive! (convertfromraw - internalcommands - sethduuid)

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