Brian Cryer

Cry about...
Windows Hyper-V-Server

Disk Management could not start Virtual Disk Service (VDS) ...

When using Computer Management to manage a hyper-v server, trying to connect to Disk Management shows the following error dialog:

Disk Management could not start Virtual Disk Service (VDS) on SERVER-NAME. This can happen if the remote computer does not support VDS, or if a connection cannot be established because it was blocked by Windows Firewall.

For additional information about diagnosing and correcting this problem, see Troubleshooting Disk Management in Disk Management Help.

Where SERVER-NAME in the above is the name (or IP address) of the hyper-v server you are trying to manage.

Possible Causes and Remedies

Possible causes that I am aware of are:

  1. The server does not support VDS (Virtual Disk Service).

    Check that the service "Virtual Disk" is installed and started. If it is not set to start automatically then set its start up type to automatic (or "Automatic (Delayed Start)") and then start it. (You can do this using Computer Management, which should be launched from Server Manager.)

  2. The connection to VDS is blocked by Windows Firewall.

    This requires the firewall on both the local and remote computers to be configured. What you need to do on both the local computer and the server is to configure Windows Firewall to enable "Remote Volume Management". You can do this by running the following on both:

    netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Volume Management" new enable=yes

    If you just do this on the server and not on the local client computer then when you next try to connect to Disk Management you will most likely (instead) see the error:

    Virtual Disk Manager
    The RPC server is unavailable

    So be sure to configure the firewall on the client as well as the server.

    You will need to restart "Computer Management" before trying to connect to Disk Management, otherwise it will remember that it was unsuccessful last time and not try to reconnect.

For versions of Windows other than Hyper-V-Server (or Server-Core) another work around is to use Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) to connect to the server and then run Disk Management on the server directly.

About the author: is a dedicated software developer and webmaster. For his day job he develops websites and desktop applications as well as providing IT services. He moonlights as a technical author and consultant.