Unable to mount ISO image in Hyper-V Generation 2 VM

I am relatively new to Hyper-V and I had no idea about the differences between Hyper-V Generation 1 and Hyper-V Generation 2 VMs.

Naturally, when I saw the option to choose between them, I chose Generation 2 because newer is better--right??

Well, I soon found out that this was not the case in the case of Hyper-V. 

I attached an ISO image that I had created from Easeus Todo Backup Technician and I suddenly discovered that I could not boot from the ISO image!

I had no such problems with booting from this ISO image in VMWare so I was totally and utterly confused.

I found a few articles indicating that I had to turn off "Secure Boot" in order to get the ISO image to boot, but that did not work either.

In the end, I reverted to the good old reliable Generation 1 Hyper-V VM and I was able to readily boot from the ISO image and perform a server restore.

Therefore, if you encounter such issues with any ISO images, it is better to stick with Hyper-V Generation 1 VMs.

Mounting and Unmounting VHD Files

I recently had to work with Hyper-V for setting up an environment for hosting Virtual Machines.  I have been a long-time user of VMWare products (VMWare Workstation, Player and vSphere) so I was relatively unfamiliar with Hyper-V.

In fact, the last time I worked with Microsoft virtualization was when they had just released Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server!

Fortunately, even being unfamiliar with the product, I was able to ramp up and figure out how to set up a VM in just a few minutes.

However, one of the perplexing aspects of Hyper-V was the use of VHD files.  I could mount multiple VHD disks, but I could not get the boot CD to recognize the VHD disks at all.

Well, I discovered that I could mount and unmount VHD files like I can mount VMDK files in VMWare.  However, the mounting of VHD files could occur directly through the Disk Management Console!

After looking over this article: http://www.7tutorials.com/disk-management-how-mount-and-unmount-vhd-images, I was able to mount my VHD files and format them.

I also found these PowerShell commands to mount and unmount the VHD files:

 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848551.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848562.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Once I had formatted the VHD files, I detached the VHD files and booted up my Hyper-V virtual machine once more.

As expected, I could now see the VHD Disks in my virtual machine using my boot CD!