Free online VHDX to RAW converter

Source format: VHDX

VHDX is Microsoft’s newer virtual hard disk format, used mainly by Hyper-V virtual machines. It stores an entire virtual disk in a single file, including partitions, file systems, and installed operating systems. Compared with older VHD files, VHDX supports larger capacities, better resilience against corruption, and improved performance for modern virtualization workloads. It is commonly used for Windows Server, Windows desktop virtualization, testing environments, and VM migration.

Target format: RAW

RAW is a simple, unstructured disk image format that represents the exact byte-for-byte contents of a disk or partition. It is widely supported by virtualization tools, forensic software, emulators, and disk utilities because it is straightforward and portable. RAW images are often preferred when maximum compatibility is needed, when importing a disk into another hypervisor, or when working with tools that expect a plain disk image rather than a container format.

How to perform the conversion

The most reliable way to convert VHDX to RAW is with qemu-img, a command-line tool included with QEMU and available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

1. Install QEMU or a package that includes qemu-img.
2. Open a terminal or command prompt in the folder containing the VHDX file.
3. Run the conversion command: qemu-img convert -f vhdx -O raw source.vhdx destination.raw
4. Wait for the process to finish. Large virtual disks can take some time.
5. Verify the output file size and, if needed, attach or import the RAW image into your target software.

If you prefer a graphical workflow, some virtualization tools and disk utilities can export or clone virtual disks, but qemu-img is usually the most direct and dependable option for this conversion. You can also convert the file on 101convert.com website for free, without installing any software.

Notes on quality, compatibility, or limitations

VHDX to RAW conversion is typically lossless at the disk-image level: the partition layout and data are preserved. However, the resulting RAW file may be larger than the source if the VHDX was dynamically allocated, because RAW images often store the full virtual disk size rather than only used blocks. Make sure the destination drive has enough free space before converting.

Also note that RAW is less feature-rich than VHDX: it does not carry VHDX-specific metadata, snapshots, or advanced resilience features. After conversion, the image may need to be attached differently depending on the target hypervisor or tool. If the VHDX contains a bootable operating system, the converted RAW image should remain bootable in compatible environments, but hardware differences between virtual platforms can still require driver or bootloader adjustments.