Easiest way to re-use a VHD

[iannorthwood]

I have a number of staged builds created by someone else and want to add another stage "on top of" one of the others. As each package takes about a day and a half to install, I *REALLY* don't want to have to start at stage 1, when there HAS to be a way to start where I want i.e. with the last but one stage.

The easiest way to my mind is to copy the VHD, rename it and then create a new VMC via the UI, pointing at the new VHD as that new VMC's hard disk.

This almost works, except that, when the new VPC starts, I get all sorts of error messages. The first tells me:

The volume "USERS_BY_SURNAME" only has [xx]MB of space left
A virtual hard disk associated with the virtual machine "[VPC name]" has been expanded, and very little space remains. Th evirtual machine will pause now.

When I resume the VPC, I can log on (as admin) OK but then I get more errors, all detailing files which have lost data:

Windows was unable to save all the data for the file [whatever]. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

After so many of these, I just kill the VPC.

So, can anyone detail the procedure for doing what I want, please?

 

[iannorthwood]

BTW, I stumbled on an article elsewhere about creating a difference disk. I went through the steps to do that, using the Virtual Disk Wizard and got the same result.

 

[iannorthwood]

Sorted...

Dumb, dumb, DUMB Microsoft for insisting that the undo disk go where the VMC is, rather than where the VHD is AND not providing the user with a way to SAY where the VMC should go.

Long & short, the VMC gets put into a sub-folder of 'My Documents\My Virtual Machines' (grrrrr....) which it so happens in my case is redirected to a network path and i was THIS path which was short of space. So, I copied the VMC to a local disk with gobs of space (coincidentally where the VHDs are, too), deleted the corresponding item form VPC Console and added it back in, this time pointing at the VMC on the big disk.

Voila! Undo disk is now in a sensible place, no more error messages and no need to mess with differencing disks.