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| ERROR_VHD_CHILD_PARENT_SIZE_MISMATCH | ERROR_VHD_DIFFERENCING_CHAIN_ERROR_IN_PARENT |
ERROR_VHD_DIFFERENCING_CHAIN_CYCLE_DETECTED
ERROR_VHD_DIFFERENCING_CHAIN_CYCLE_DETECTED means a differencing-disk chain refers back to itself. Windows cannot resolve reads safely because following parents would never reach a base disk.
What to do for ERROR_VHD_DIFFERENCING_CHAIN_CYCLE_DETECTED
- Stop automated attach, merge, and checkpoint cleanup operations for the affected chain.
- Map every child-to-parent relationship from the leaf back to the intended base disk.
- Correct relationships only after verifying the original chain; an arbitrary parent reassignment can lose guest data.
Diagnostic interpretation
This result has the HRESULT value 0xC03A0018. AllStat records the condition as “The chain of virtual hard disks is corrupted. A differencing disk is indicated in its own parent chain.”.
Evidence to capture
- Capture any IErrorInfo text, activity identifier, event-log entry, and subsystem trace that mentions this result or the vhd / differencing / chain / cycle / detected operation.
- Preserve the first failure in the call chain; a later HRESULT can describe cleanup rather than the original vhd / differencing / chain / cycle / detected condition.
Retry and recovery
Retry this result only when the owning API documents a transient state or after the condition described as “The chain of virtual hard disks is corrupted. ” has changed.
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