MS Virtual PC cannot boot from a .vhd disk larger than 127 GB

This article applies to:

• Acronis Backup (Acronis Backup & Recovery)

(!) This article does not apply to Acronis True Image Home. Acronis True Image Home supports only Windows native backup (VHD) that cannot be run as a virtual machine.

Symptoms

1. Using Acronis Backup (Acronis Backup & Recovery) you convert a backup archive to a virtual disk in .vhd format.
2. You add the converted .vhd disk as an IDE disk to a MS Virtual PC machine;
3. The MS Virtual PC machine does not boot.

Cause

MS Virtual PC cannot boot from .vhd disk larger than 127 GB.

This is a limitation of IDE interface, which is the only option to connect a drive in MS Virtual PC.

Solution

Instead of converting the backup archive to a .vhd disk, restore it using Acronis Universal Restore:

1. Create a blank virtual disk on the MS Virtual PC machine;
2. Restore the .tib backup to the created blank virtual disk using Acronis Universal Restore. This will allow resizing the disk to a size smaller than 127 GB (provided that the hard disk from which backup is created has enough free space to allow downsizing).

More information

In MS Virtual Server there are both IDE and SCSI available. The limitation of SCSI is 2040 GB.

See also:

• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10: Limitations on Converting TIB to Citrix XenServer VHD
• Hyper-V Booted from Acronis Bootable Media Detects IDE Disks 127.5 GB