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I have a Hyper-V R2 box that suffered a hard drive failure. Let me say, there was no redundancy in the box, but I was able to copy the folders for the 2 VMs that I needed to keep. Since I'm unable to boot and do a proper Export from Hyper-V, what are my options on getting these VMs working in a new installation? I know its not as simple as plopping them in a directory and having the server see them, and I can't import them without the .exp files.

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The easiest thing to do is to copy the vhd disk to a directory on the new server.

Create a new VM in the Hyper-V manager and when it asks you whether you want to create a new disk or "use an existing virtual hard drive", choose the second option and select the VHD that you copied and start the VM.

It should work, I have recovered a couple of VM's this way.

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I'll give that a shot. – DanBig Jan 22 '10 at 13:54
That did it. Sometimes its really easy to overlook the simple solutions. Thanks. – DanBig Jan 22 '10 at 14:19
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This has long been resolved, but for posterity I have to add that if you were running from snapshots. You MUST, absolutely MUST keep your tongue straight, and do backups of every file before you start restoring them. If you mount from a base VHD, and not the current differencing snapshot VHD, then you will bork your VM. – Gomibushi Apr 16 '10 at 12:15

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