My DiskGenius Notes

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Friday, 18 July 2025 13:11

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My DiskGenius Notes

Booting DiskGenius from Ventoy

To boot DiskGenius from Ventoy, we need to generate the WinPE Bootable USB Drive and image it. Ventoy allows the use of several different image formats, all with their own strengths.

Make the DiskGenius Bootable WinPE USB

Create WinPE Bootable USB Drive - DiskGenius - DiskGenius supports to make bootable USB disk based on Windows PE so that you can recover lost data, manage disk or backup data when system cannot boot.

When you create your USB drive I think the build process uses your PC for the drivers and WinPE files so the resulting data size on the USB drive will change depending on your system.

I don't know if the DiskGenius USB drives are tried to the PC they were created on.

VHD/VHDX (recommended)

I would recommend getting a 2GB USB drive to keep the image size down and reduce the number of steps required.

The size difference between the images created by these formats is minimal.

Aquire the Image
- Connect the DiskGenius USB drive
- Image with rufus/something elese to get an RAW DD VHDX style image
  - Create a VHDX image, save it to your desktop and call it: FIXEDSIZE-DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.vhdx
- Disconnect the DiskGenius USB drive (optional)
Prepare the Image
1. Mount the image with native windows or OSMount
2. use starwind p2v to generate a new dynamic(growable) vhdx image
3. Rename the file to DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.vhdx
Configure Ventoy
- Connect the Ventoy USB drive
- Copy DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.vhdx to your ventoy images partition.
- Install the Ventoy Windows VHD Boot Plugin
  - Plugin.WinVhdBoot . Ventoy
    - Ventoy use this plugin to boot VHD(x) files with Windows 7+ in it.
    - Both Legacy BIOS and UEFI are supported. Both fixed and dynamic VHD(x) are supported.
    - In UEFI mode, only 64 bit Windows is supported, 32 bit is NOT supported.
Done
- Boot from your Ventoy USB and check it loads.

WIM

This only works for UEFI/EFI environments.

If you try and boot the WIM when using MBR/CSM/Legacy it will start to load and then a black screen will overlay the Ventoy loader and it will crash.

Aquire the Image
- Connect the DiskGenius USB drive
- Show hidden files
- Copy the following file to your desktop: ...\DiskGenius - Boot\boot.wim
- Disconnect the DiskGenius USB drive (optional)
Prepare the Image
- Rename boot.wim to something human readable like DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.wim
Configure Ventoy
- Connect the Ventoy USB drive
- Copy DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.wim to your ventoy images partition.
- Install the Ventoy Wimboot Plugin
  - Plugin.wimboot . Ventoy - Ventoy use this plugin to boot WIM files (Legacy BIOS + UEFI)
Done
- Boot from your Ventoy USB and check it loads.

ISO

This is a very trick and time consuming option and is not really needed

Aquire the Image
- Connect the DiskGenius USB drive
- ..............
Prepare the Image
- ...........
Configure Ventoy
- Connect the Ventoy USB drive
- Copy DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.wim to your ventoy images partition.
Done
- Boot from your Ventoy USB and check it loads.

Starwind conversion notes (to reduce size)

Mount your drive image
1. Windows Native (GUI)
  1. Right click on the drive image and select mount.
  2. or through `Disk Management`: Action --> Attach VHD
2. Windows Native (diskpart)
  1. Select the disk via its path: select vdisk file="<PathToYourDesktop>\DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.vhdx"
3. OSFMount
Convert the image with starwind
- Select the location of the image to convert: P2V
- Select physical data to convert: Physical Disk
- Select physical disk to convert: Virtual Disk
- Select the location of the destination image: Local file
- Select the destination image format: VHD/VHDX
- Select option for VHD/VHDX image format: VHDX growable image
  - Ignore `Activate windows Repair Mode`
- Set destination filename: <PathToYourDesktop>\DiskGenius v6.0.1.1645.vhdx
- Click `Convert`
Unmount your drive imagwe
- Window Native (GUI)
  - You can unmount by right clicking on the drive and selecting Eject.
  - or through `Disk Management`: Right click on the drive you want to unmount and select, Detach VHD.
- Windows Native (diskpart)
  - run the command: detach vdisk

When you Mount a DiskGenius USB image as a hard drive in Windows you get this error

TL;DR this error is caused by the source USB formatted as a "Super Floppy"

Starwind P2V does not support "Super Floppy" for live copying as it expects a partition table. NEED OFFICIAL LINK

A USB drive can be formatted as a traditional hard drive (HDD) or in a "Super Floppy" format akin to a traditional floppy disk (FDD).

"Super Floppy" does nto have a MBR or a Partition Table which is what Starwind is looking for when converting.

Scenario

You used a large USB drive for your DiskGenius WinPE and as a consequence the image is very larege even though most of the space is empty.
You mounted the drive image using either Windows Native or OSFMount.
The drive has successfully mounted
You open Starwind V2V to convert your large USB Fixed size disk image to a growable VHDX image which will create a much smaller image file
After going through the wizard, you click on convert and almost immediately you get the following error.

Error

Background

Cause

After in-depth research I can clarify the error is not cause by:

Rufus or DiskImager: these apps just create a binary image of the disk and change nothing. Any errors or issues of the drive are blindly transferred to the disk image.
Windows 10 or Windows 11: Apart from the size of the boot.wim there is no difference (Win10 = 550mb)(Win11 = 1GB).
Windows Native and OSFormat disk image mounting: These were mounting the disk image correctly and giving a 1:1 representation of the imaged USB drive.
The disk image being mounted as "Read-Only": This does not interfer with the conversion as it is used as a source only.
The size/capacity of the USB drive: None of the software has any size limits, certainly none that have been reached.
Cluster Size / Allocation Unit Size: I tried both 4096 and 8192 and those made no difference. 8192 seems to be the default allocation size for 16GB USB drives.
Trying different locations for the source and destination files made no difference.
VHD, VHDX and IMG disk image formats all worked as expected.
I got no Windows Defender errors, so in this case it was not the AV causing issues.
Encryption on the drive can cause issues but these drive had none so can be ruled out.

What I have tried

Zero fillinb the USB before reformatting = this just created a "Super Floppy" USB drive because this is how Windows formats USB
I check the USB drive for errors by doing a full surface scan, it found no errors.
I checked the FAT32 file system with chkdsk which found no errors.

Diagnostics

How to check if your USB is configured as "Super Floppy" or a traditional Hard drive (HDD)
- diskpart
  - Run the following commands (swap # for the number assigned to your USB disk):
```
diskpart
list disk
select disk #
detail disk
```
  - This should give an output as follows:
```
Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.26100.1150

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: WIN11PC

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1863 GB  4096 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online         7651 MB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

General USB Flash Disk USB Device
Disk ID: 6F20736B
Type   : USB
Status : Online
Path   : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : No
Pagefile Disk  : No
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : No
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 5     E   PICTURES     FAT32  Removable   7651 MB  Healthy

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
* Partition 1    Primary             14 GB      0 B

DISKPART> select partition 1

There is no partition selected.

DISKPART>
```
  - As you can see, Disk 1 (the USB):
    - It is not a GPT based disk.
    - Has no free space, meaning that all the space has been assigned to partitions.
    - It is not a "Boot Disk".
    - Has only 1 Volume/Partition, which is not bootable.
    - When you try and select the partition, diskpart returns the error, "There is no partition selected.", indicating it has an error accessing the partition table which do not exist on "Super Floppy" USB drives.
  - This is a "Super Floppy" USB drive, or the partition table is corrupted.
- DiskGenius
  - (shows fdd)
  - The partition is not set as active, and cannot be set as active.
  - is a USB drive classed as a FDD (see in genius shows this), maybe i need to use OSFMount in fdd mode.
- OSFMount
  - does not show partitions in step x
  - the images I made on Windows 11, when using OSFMount, step 2, only allows me to select `Mount entire image as a virtual disk`, not `Mountpartitions as virtual disks` and then when mounted the imformation looks differetn.
  - on the winpe 4096 16gb the partition list is missing in OSFormat thus this shows there is an issue with the image, but becasue rufus is doing a 1:1 binary it must be an issue with the drive, (maybe the image header, but it should just be bianry))
  - osfmount difference between a logial and physical drive emulation - Should i move this to disk handling notes
    - i have an image that when i mount as a physical disk shows not partitions in OSFMount but windows mounts a volume form this drive?
  - - OSFMount - What is the difference between logical and physical drive emulation modes:
      - In OSFMount, the difference between logical and physical drive emulation lies in how the mounted image is presented to the operating system:
        
        Logical Drive Emulation
        
        What it is: Mounts a partition within a disk image as a drive.
        
        Use case: When you're only interested in accessing a specific partition (e.g., a file system like NTFS or FAT32).
        
        Example: Mounting just the C: partition from a full disk image.
        
        Visible as: A standard drive letter in Windows (e.g., D:, E:).
        
        No boot sector or MBR is emulated—just the file system content.
        
        Faster and simpler for common use cases like extracting files.
        
        Physical Drive Emulation
        
        What it is: Mounts the entire image as if it were a real physical disk, including the MBR, partition table, and all partitions.
        
        Use case: When you need to work with the full disk structure (e.g., for forensic analysis or imaging software that requires MBR access).
        
        Visible as: A physical disk (not a drive letter), usually accessed via disk management tools or forensic software.
        
        Can emulate multiple partitions, raw sectors, boot records, etc.
        
        Slower and more resource-intensive, but gives low-level access.
      - Forum
        
        OSFMount decides automatically whether to use physical or logical emulation based on the presence of a partition table in the image.
        
        OSFMount shall automatically mount using Physical Drive or Logical emulation based on whether the image file contains a partition table or not
      - Another forum post clarifies the difference in practical terms:
        
        Logical emulation: mounts only the file system as a volume — you get a drive letter but no low-level disk access..
        
        Physical emulation: mounts the entire disk, including all sectors and partitions — useful for low-level forensic or VM boot tasks

Workarounds

Solutions

Always use dynamic/growab;e disk image files where possib;e to keep space used down.

Always use MBR/HDD style formatting on your USB drives where possible.

Convert the USB drive into bootable USB with a single FAT32 partition (HDD format), make this partition `Active`, then use DiskGenius to make it a WinPE. This way ensures the USB drive and any images created from it will work in Starwind P2V as there is a partition table present.
Use the original disk image as is. You can keep the image size down by using a smaller USB drive (Win10 = 1GB, Win11 = 2GB).
Use DiskGenius Pro to make a VHD/VHDX image directly from the USB drive setting the new drive image to be a growable/dynamic type.
Manually create a VHD/VHDX image on your PC, mount the VHD/VHDX drive image, then:
1. use DiskGenius Free to do a Disk to Disk (clone) from the USB drive to the Drive image.
  or
2. Create a FAT32 partition, set it as `Active`, then manually copy all of the files from the USB drive into the new partition ion the drive image.

Other notes

When you mount a drive in Windows either using the GUI or dispart, the image will be mounted as a physical drive.
Windows and OSFMouint will mount an image whether is is a normal HDD style or a "Super Floppy" (FDD) style image.
Windows will not fall back to a logical volume emulation if a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) image file is corrupted—even slightly.
can 7zip open VHD files?
The partition table is not inherently protected—it's just stored in a specific location on the USB drive. While it can’t be easily changed by average users without intent or privilege, it can be accessed, overwritten, or corrupted by software that has sufficient access.

Compact a grovable VHD/VHDX with diskpart

sdelete
- clean free space
- this changes all of the unallocated apce back to unused in the image file.
- this is needed becasue when a full binary image of a drive is done, all bits are entered into the image, irrespective of whether that sector is holding any data.
diskpart
- attach
- compact
- detacjh

Read 18 times Last modified on Tuesday, 22 July 2025 16:38

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