How to Attach Additional Virtual Hard Disks (.VHD Files) in Virtual PC?

Virtual PC is an application which is mostly used for practices and/or lab purposes. In earlier days when there were no virtual machines people used to practice on physical machines. When they required additional hardware say LAN card or HDD they used to spend money to buy them. However because of virtual machines today people do not have to buy expensive additional devices. Instead they can create and attach a virtual device to a virtual machine and practice. The steps given below will tell you how to create and attach additional virtual hard disk (.VHD) file in a virtual machine running on Virtual PC.

1. In Virtual PC Console box select the virtual machine in which you want to add additional virtual hard disk and click on Settings button.
2. In the Settings window in the left pane select Hard Disk 2 and in the right pane click on Virtual Disk Wizard button.
3. On Welcome to Virtual Disk Wizard page click on Next button.
4. On the Disk Options page make sure that Create a new virtual disk radio button is selected and click on Next button.
5. On Virtual Disk Type ensure that A virtual hard disk radio button is selected and click on Next button.
6. On Virtual Hard Disk Location page click on Browse button and locate the place where you want to save your additional virtual hard disk (.VHD) file. Give the new virtual hard disk a name and click on Save button.
7. On Virtual Hard Disk Options page ensure that Dynamically expanding (Recommended) radio button is selected and click on Next button.
8. [caption id="attachment_1291" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Dynamically Expanding (Recommended)"]
9. On Virtual Hard Disk Size page specify the maximum size of the virtual hard disk in MB and click on Next button.
10. On Completing the Virtual Disk Wizard page click on Finish button to create and automatically attach this additional virtual hard disk to the virtual machine.

You can now start the virtual machine and initialize the attached hard disk as you would do in physical machine.

Virtual Floppy Disk (.VFD)

Above process can also be used to create a Virtual Floppy Disk. To do so you need to select A virtual floppy disk radio button on Virtual Disk Type page as mentioned in step 5.