Making a virtual drive permanent

[brollyjin]

Is it possible to make a virtual drive permanent??

i'm using winmount to mount a .vdi file and it then shows a new drive (local disk Z: ) in my computer. But after exiting winmount..the drive gets unmounted..

So is there any way i can make local disk Z as a permanent drive so that it remains there permanently and i dont have to use winmount again and agian??

 

[Hawkeye22]

Unless the OS has a native driver for vdi files you will need a third party program or driver to mount and unmount the volume. Does winmount have any features to allow you to mount the volume at startup? If so, use it.

 

[brollyjin]

I dont understand native driver...

and no...winmount doesnt allow mount on startup

 

[Hawkeye22]

native driver = built into the OS. Windows does not have native vdi drivers.

 

[brollyjin]

Is there any software to convert the .vdi into permanent hard drive??

cant we use disk manager to do something.??

can you check this youtube link and tell is this what i am looking for,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en-6GjtlwJc

 

[Hawkeye22]

Why not just purchase a drive, mount the vdi and copy all files over to the new drive?

 

[popatim]

Is there any software to convert the .vdi into permanent hard drive??

cant we use disk manager to do something.??

can you check this youtube link and tell is this what i am looking for,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en-6GjtlwJc

No, that only assigns a drive letter to a folder that already exists on your hard drive.

A vdi is a compressed archive of files basically.

You have 2 options as I see it:
1: if you wish to maintain the compressd nature of the vdi file you can create a bat file that runs at startup, just like in that video, that runs the mount command {such as : winmount -m path_to vdi_file -drv z:} at every startup

2: create a folder on your main drive named something like z_drive. Mount the virtual z: drive and then copy everything into the new folder. Unmount the virtual z:drive so that the drive letter is now available. From here you can create a Z: drive using the subst command just like in the video: subst z: c:\z_drive
{or do it the easy way with a utility called visual subst; be sure to check the box to have the drive load at startup.}
And now you can make a couple of backups of the vdi file (to dvd) and then delete if from the harddrive if you need the room.


Please note that in option 2: you will lose the spaced saved in compressing the contents of the drive as well as the files themselves being hidden somewhat... but you loose those if you have the vdi mount at startup anyways.

 

[brollyjin]

Why not just purchase a drive, mount the vdi and copy all files over to the new drive?

nah....
the virtual drive is just 780 mb in size...and at present i dont need an additional drive...

 

[brollyjin]

I was searching for using winmount through command prompt and found this..


Mount muti partition file(s)

Command: winmount -m HDD_file [-drv:disk] [-Part😛artition number(0,1...)] [-NoWriteback:]

Introduction: -Part😛artion number,0 is the first partition, 1 is the second partition

Example: winmount -m Win2003.vhd -part:2
Appropriate for *.vhd, *.vdi, *.vmdk

here's the link

http://www.winmount.com/command.html

but i'm not understanding the command...

could you please write down the whole command so that i can just copy-paste it in the notepad and save it as .bat file...

file name is youwave_vm01.vdi

path is C:\Documents and Settings\brollyjin\.Virtualbox\HardDisks

 

[Hawkeye22]

Why not just purchase a drive, mount the vdi and copy all files over to the new drive?

nah....
the virtual drive is just 780 mb in size...and at present i dont need an additional drive...

Then just copy it to a folder on an existing hard drive.

 

[popatim]

Try (only try this when the vdi is not already mounted):
winmount -m C:\Documents and Settings\brollyjin\.Virtualbox\HardDisks\youwave_vm01.vdi -drv z:

if that fails the add the part: parameter witht he appropriate partition
number. 0 is partition1, 1 is second partition .. and so on.

winmount -m C:\Documents and Settings\brollyjin\.Virtualbox\HardDisks\youwave_vm01.vdi -drv z: -part:0


To unmount the drive, type
winmount -unmount:z


I would try them right from the command prompt window and see if that works. You can copy and paste from the browser window to the cmd window. Then make a bat file for whichever one worked best. Dont forget to unmount the drive before you shut down.

 

[brollyjin]

thnx
but it didnt work..

i figured out that first you have to open winmount and only then it can mount the vdi file..

so...i wrote 2 commands

1st to open winmount

2nd to open the vdi file

and then saved it as a .bat file and it worked...then i pasted the bat file into my startup folder....

so thanks both of you(@popatim @Hawkeye22) for helping me out..

 

[Hawkeye22]

Glad you got it figured out. I'm surprised there isn't an automount feature in that program. Write the developers and perhaps they can include that feature in the next release.

 

[brollyjin]

Glad you got it figured out. I'm surprised there isn't an automount feature in that program. Write the developers and perhaps they can include that feature in the next release.

The automount feature wont be of any help for me..

youwave wont load if the vdi file is mounted..

i can do only one thing at a time..either use youwave or mount the vdi to copy stuff.. :/