microsoft / microsoft/WSL

WSL2: VHD file vanished after Windows 11 restart

Open
#12,126 17 comments 9 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
file system
Dominant language
C++
Stars
33.7k
Forks
1.8k
Avg merge
3d 17h
Merged PRs (30d)
116

Description

### Windows Version

10.0.22631.4169

### WSL Version

2.3.24.0

### Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

- [X] WSL 2
- [ ] WSL 1

### Kernel Version

5.15.153.1-2

### Distro Version

ubuntu 24.04

### Other Software

Docker desktop is installed as well with WSL support.

### Repro Steps

Start WSL in cmd: `wsl`

### Expected Behavior

My default Ubuntu distribution should start.

### Actual Behavior

Failed to attach disk 'C:\Program Files\WSL\system.vhd' to WSL2
Error code: Wsl/Service/CreateInstance/CreateVm/MountVhd/HCS/ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

It happened after a Windows restart 1 hour ago. I don't see any updates from Windows Update in the log for today.

Could someone tell if I can recover my VMs from this event, or even how to freshly restart a new Ubuntu VM? For now, even if I try `wsl install `, I get the same error `vhd file not found`.

### Diagnostic Logs

_No response_

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing `wsl` on Windows 11 with WSL 2 and inspect the reported `C:\Program Files\WSL\system.vhd` path. Compare the failure with the listed WSL, kernel, Ubuntu, and Docker Desktop versions. Done means determining whether the existing VMs can be recovered or whether a fresh Ubuntu installation can start.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, ubuntu
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.