I’ve been greatly enjoying learning more about Windows Server technology from the Early Experts website. They have some great material to help you prepare for certification, or simply to learn more about Windows Server technology. I’ve been working my way through the Apprentice Quest, and steps 2 and 3 in the quest require you to download Windows Server 2012 R2 in a VHD format. I downloaded the file, though I did so over 2 days (pausing the download so I could put my laptop to sleep and go to sleep myself and then resuming in the morning).

When I went to mount the VHD file (right click on the file and select mount), it popped up with the following message:

SorryThereWasAProblemMountingTheFile

“Sorry, there was a problem mounting the file”. Really? Classic Microsoft. Thank you for the completely obvious and worthless error message. Given Microsoft’s usual level of helpfulness, I naturally avoid Bing and go straight to Google for an answer. After seeing almost nothing helpful, I find the most bizarre answer…

[callout] Simply COPY, not cut and paste, the VHD file from one location to another and you’ll find that you can mount it.[/callout]

For reasons completely unknown, this clears the error condition and the file can be mounted, and in my case, booted from. That’s it!

If you have any questions on this, please leave a comment and I’ll do what I can to help. Thanks!