I'm working with some pre-created VHD files that I want to use for new VMs on our Hyper-V cluster, but I'm running into an issue. They work perfectly fine when I test them locally, but the Hyper-V on our cluster seems to not recognize them at all—they just show up as an empty folder. We're running Server 2016 on the cluster nodes. I've tried converting the VHD files to VHDX using PowerShell and Starwind, but that makes them unbootable. Does anyone have suggestions on what I can change to make Hyper-V recognize these VHD files?
3 Answers
Have you tried managing the nodes directly through Hyper-V Manager? You could add the VHD files there and then test them out. Once you confirm they're working, add them to the Failover Cluster Manager. In the Failover Cluster Manager, right-click on the cluster name, select 'Configure Role', and then choose 'Virtual Machine' to follow the wizard for setup.
If your local tests succeed, double-check that your VHD system is bootable. If it is, consider using Clonezilla to clone it into a new VM, which often helps with bringing everything over without issues.
Sadly, that's not a feasible option for our environment.
You might want to try creating a Generation 1 VM in Hyper-V first. This allows for legacy boot support, which sometimes helps after converting to VHDX. It could resolve the recognition issue you're facing!
I'll give that a shot. I didn’t run into this problem on my local setup. Plus, the servers I'm replacing have secure boot enabled, so I’d prefer to keep that configuration. Thanks!
Unfortunately, nothing works since the server doesn’t even recognize the VHD files when I try to use an existing hard drive.