Attach EBS Volume to Windows EC2 with Powershell

Hoping this helps someone out there. The AWS stuff was easy, but took me a while to track down all the things for Windows to use it.

This answer is stripped down for brevity, so make sure:

1. you've handled the AWS Powershell API exceptions
2. your volumes are "available" before to try to attach them to an EC2
3. the volume shows "in-use" once you've attached it

2 and 3 can be done via the Get-EC2Volume API.

Create the EBS Volume:

$volume = New-EC2Volume -Size $sizeInGB -AvailabilityZone $az -VolumeType $vType

Attach the Volume to the EC2:

Add-EC2Volume -InstanceId $toInstanceId -VolumeId $volume.Id -Device $devId -Region $region

Windows side:

locate the ebs volume you just attached

$diskNumber = (Get-Disk | ? {     ($_.OperationalStatus -eq "Offline") -and ($_."PartitionStyle" -eq "RAW") }).Number

initialize the disk

Initialize-Disk -Number $diskNumber -PartitionStyle "MBR"

create max-space partition, assign drive letter, make "active"

$part = New-Partition -DiskNumber $diskNumber -UseMaximumSize -IsActive -AssignDriveLetter

format the new drive

Format-Volume -DriveLetter $part.DriveLetter -Confirm:$FALSE

Enjoy!