SECURE YOUR HARD DISK USING VHD

VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) is the type of the file which represents a virtual hard drive (HDD). It has all those features which we find on our normal hard drive. It includes features like disk partitions & file systems, which consists of files and folders. This format was created by Connectix, later was modified by Microsoft, for what is now known as Microsoft virtual machine. A Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) allows multiple operating systems to reside on a single host machine. Creating VHD helps us in securing the data on our hard disk.

Steps for Creation of Virtual Hard Disk on Windows 7:

Step1. This process creates virtual disks in the .VHD format where the minimum size is 3MB. To begin, Right-click on My Computer and select to Manage. Alternately, you can type diskmgmt.msc into the Start search box and enter.

Fig.1. Manage option
 

Step 2. The Computer Management screen opens then click on Disk Management and then Action and Create VHD

Fig 2. Action menu

Step3.Browse to the directory you want the disk to reside, choose the size you want it to be, and select dynamic or a fixed. If you want the disk to expand in size as you add files to it, then pick dynamically expanding. Check Fixed size if you want a specific size and for it to stay that way.

      Fig 3. Action menu

 

step4: In Disk Management you will see the virtual drive listed as unallocated space.        

step5: To begin using it you’ll need to Right-click and select Initialize Disk.

      Fig 4. Initialize option

Step6: In the initialize disk box just keep MBR selected and hit OK.

Step7: Creating a New Volume

To create a volume by Right-clicking the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume.

Step8: Choose the amount of space you want to use for the volume.

                                                          Fig 5. Volume size window

Step9: Assign it a drive letter that is not currently being used.

Step10: Format the new volume as NTFS, FAT32, or FAT. Check if you want a quick format and file compression.

Fig 6. Format volume window

Step 10: The wizard is complete, click on Finish.

Step 11: If you have AutoPlay enabled, it should pop up for you to open up your new virtual hard disk.

         Fig 7. Autoplay window

Step 12: It will be listed with the other disks in Disk Management.

                                                     Fig 8. New volume will be added

Follow the above steps and your VHD (virtual hard disk) is ready.