Booting off external USB

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
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hornetster
Posts: 20
Joined: 10. Jan 2013, 13:24
Primary OS: openSUSE
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Win10
Location: Wide Bay, Qld, Australia

Booting off external USB

Post by hornetster »

Trying to boot off a USB thumbdrive (16GB - ChromeOS), which boots fine on several laptops that I have tried.
Have run:

Code: Select all

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /home/SSDdATA/VirtualBox/ChromeOS/ChromeOS\ Flex/ChromeOS.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdc2
and seems to create the file fine. Disk then added to the machine. User is in the groups: disk + vboxusers.

Host OS is Tumbleweed.
VirtualBox 6.1.34_SUSE r150636 with Extensions installed.

If I do an F12, Get 2x HDD, one would be the empty one created, and other I assume is referring to my usb, but get "Fatal: no bootable medium found! Sytem halted" for either.
Where am I going wrong?
Thanks.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Booting off external USB

Post by mpack »

There is no USB support in the VirtualBox legacy BIOS, hence USB is not available until after the guest OS has booted and enabled its own USB drivers.

The EFI BIOS otoh does seem to have USB support, though of course you'll need the extension pack installed on the host.

Another hack sometimes used, if you're desperate, is to create a VMDK header for the USB drive - as you have done. This tends to raise permissions issues so I don't recommend it. Plus, if I'm reading it right you are trying to boot from a partition instead of the whole disk. Partitions don't have boot sectors so trying to boot from that will not work as is (the VMDK would have to include a separate extent containing replacement boot sectors - yeah, it's complicated too).

A more practical possibility is to transfer the USB stick contents to a bootable ISO image, and boot from that instead.

Btw., 6.1.34_SUSE means it's a third party port, it's not actually VirtualBox. We only support VirtualBox here, you need to go to your distro's forums for support. Or install VirtualBox for real.
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