After mounting, the VHD appears as a drive letter (e.g., E:). Run:
Open PowerShell as Administrator:
select disk X (where X is the VHD's disk number) online disk attributes disk clear readonly This erases data but may salvage the VHD container: how to repair vhd file
Repair-VHD -Path "C:\Corrupted.vhd" -Force This command fixes minor footer and header inconsistencies. It does repair logical file system damage or data block corruption. Run it on a copy first. Method 3: Manual Fix Using DiskPart For VHDs that mount but show as "Unknown" or "Not Initialized" in Disk Management:
Mount-VHD -Path "C:\Corrupted.vhd" -ReadOnly This prevents further writes to a damaged structure. After mounting, the VHD appears as a drive letter (e
clean convert mbr create partition primary format fs=ntfs quick assign letter=Z exit After this, the VHD is functional but empty. Use data recovery software on the original corrupted VHD before cleaning. When Microsoft tools fail, specialized software can reconstruct VHD headers, repair block maps, and extract data.
Dismount-VHD "C:\Corrupted.vhd" Mount-VHD -Path "C:\Corrupted.vhd" -NoDriveLetter Then assign a drive letter via Disk Management and run CHKDSK again. Run it on a copy first
PowerShell includes a dedicated cmdlet: