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How to boot from USB in virtualbox on Ubuntu

Posted on | May 13, 2011 | No Comments

How to boot from USB in virtualbox
Useful for quick testing of USB boot media, flexible plug’n’play of guest operating systems, and so on.
Tested for various Ubuntu 9/10, virtualbox 3.1.6/4
Prepare:
$ su
# mkdir /root/.VirtualBox/HardDisks
# VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /root/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/usbdisk.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdb1
So, you tell virtualbox to see the USB drive as a disk, which you then boot from.
Open virtualbox
# virtualbox
Make new machine, choose “Existing harddisk” and point at the one you created.

Useful for quick testing of USB boot media, flexible plug’n’play of guest operating systems, and so on.

Tested for various Ubuntu 9/10, virtualbox 3.1.6/4.0.6

Prepare:

$ su

# mkdir /root/.VirtualBox/HardDisks

# VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename \
/root/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/usbdisk.vmdk \
-rawdisk /dev/sdb1

Note: all in one line! the last bit, the device name, needs to point at your USB drive. In this case /dev/sdb1 – yours will be different!

So, you tell virtualbox to see the USB drive as a disk, which you then boot from.

Open virtualbox:

# virtualbox

Make new machine, choose “Existing harddisk” and point at the one you created.

Thats all.

Thanks, Three Wise Men http://www.twm-kd.com/software/boot-virtualbox-machine-from-a-usb-flash-drive/

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