How to Create and Mount VHD/VHDX in Windows Server 2016?

A VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) is a file format which represent a virtual disk drive. A VHD can be used to store virtual disk data in files that can be easily transferred from one computer to another. It contains what is found on a physical HDDs such as disk partition and file system. Once they are mounted, you can treat them like physical disks and use them to store data, if they’ll be dismounted the stored data is packaged in the VHD/VHDX so you can copy or move it when needed. When moved to another computer, you can mount VHD and copy or move data from it. So let’s get started.

Create VHD/VHDX in Windows Server

Note: You can create and mount VHD/VHDX using this method on Windows Server 2008, 2012, 2016 and Windows clients such as; Windows 8, 10
Before getting started, plan which drive to use for VHD and VHD size.
1. Open Run(win+r) and type Diskmgmt.msc then hit enter. When the Disk Management opened, click on Action and select Create VHD.

Disk Management

2. Now browse the location you want to locate the VHD and then select a VHD format. Wherever the VHD locates it will take drive space from that drive.
VHD:- The original and more compatible Supports virtual disks up to 2040 GB
VHDX: A new version of the format which supports up to 64 TB but can be read only by computers running windows server 2012 and 2012 R2.
When VHD format selected, select virtual hard disk type from the following and click Ok.
Fixed Size (Recommended): Allocates all the disk space for the VHD/VHDX file at once.
Dynamically Expanding: Allocates disk space to the VHD/VHDX file as you add data to the virtual hard disk.

Create and Attach Virtual Hard Disk

Ok, when the settings finished click OK and wait some minutes to let the system create the VHD.

Create a Simple Volume to Mount VHD

When the VHD/VHDX created, now mount VHD to make useable store files in it.
1. After the VHD created, it will be uninitialized and offline in disk management console, to mount it: Open Disk Managment and the Initialize Disk window will automatically appear, select a partition style for the disk and click Ok.
Master boot record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS partition table and can be booted for installing operating system also it can be recognized by previous versions of windows.
GUID partition table (GPT) disks use unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). One advantage of GPT disks is that you can have more than four partitions on each disk. GPT is also required for disks larger than 2 terabytes. It can’t be recognized by all previous versions of windows.

Initialize Disk

2. At this point, right click on the disk and choose New Simple Volume, when the volume wizard opened just click Next to continue.

New Simple Volume Wizard

3. Choose a volume size for the virtual disk and click Next.

Specify Volume size

4. Now assign the folder drive letter and click Next.

Assign Drive Letter or Path

5. Here you’ve to choose volume format settings like format file system, Allocation unit size, Volume Label/Name and click Next to complete the volume creating settings.

Format Partition

6. Review all the settings and click Finish to create a volume successfully and mount the VHD.

Competition

The volume has created successfully, now you can store data and copy or move it.

VHD created

To copy or move the VHD first detach it in your computer from disk management then copy or move it to another place and attach it again to that computer, to detach; Open disk management and click on Action and select detach VHD.
When the Attach virtual hard disk opened, browse the VHD location from your computer and click ok. It will detach the VHD successfully with the data in it.