Boot from bootable USB drive in VB?

[guyinsb]

Great concept, but I get the same non-working result: when
the menu asks which device to boot from, I first insert the USB flash drive,
then select USB. The system then displays the
Loading ...
Searching ...
HOST1

but nothing else gets displayed.

My next test: verify this USB flash drive is indeed bootable on a real PC system.

[henkes]

My next test: verify this USB flash drive is indeed bootable on a real PC system.

mmm I had hoped people would test their boot media before posting on the VB forums, it's not like VB is a miracle worker that can get your unbootable USB drive to boot in a VM.....

[Nib33]

PLoP... It just freezes after:
Loading EHCI Driver
Searching on Hosts
Host 1

Same here.
Any solution?

[drewsus]

I havent found anything, but I can confirm that it does work outside of the virtual environment (I used to from a CD to boot from USB on an old motherboard)

[goatjc]

Still receiving a freeze on after the host 1 message.

Works great in VMware, other machines etc so I'm attributing it to VB environment.

[drewsus]

I dont have that VM installed anymore, but has anyone tried changing the USB settings? I believe there is something to do with changing which host you start with or something like that. I remember it did in fact take some tinkering in there to get a Dell Inspiron 1525 to boot from the USB

[saviour]

Made it work on VB 3.2.6 (non OSE) without freezing at the host 1 message.
Just had to enable the USB support (without enabling the USB 2.0 box in the settings window).

Hope this will help.

[rburkhal]

Bingo! "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" must be un-checked before USB Booting will work with the PLOP iso. I've noticed that although it works, it reads from the usb key slowly. If anyone has a clue on how to fix the speed issue then everything would be working perfect!

[awienick]

Bingo! "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" must be un-checked before USB Booting will work with the PLOP iso. I've noticed that although it works, it reads from the usb key slowly. If anyone has a clue on how to fix the speed issue then everything would be working perfect!

1.) what OS are you running
2.) how long does it take to startup?

[Fidelius]

I've got a bootable USB drive which contains (X)Ubuntu Linux, ie a kind of portable Ubuntu Linux. Boots well natively with the help of the PC's BIOS.
As suggested earlier in the forum, with the help of a Virtualbox command creating a small ".vmdk" file (which points to that USB drive), you can also boot the USB drive's Linux from within Virtualbox.

However, the Windows user account which runs Virtualbox needs Administrator rights in order to use the vmdk file.

On some Windows XP machines I've got Virtualbox running without Administrator rights and I still would like to boot this USB drive from within Virtualbox, but it won't work.

Is it possible?

To these Virtualboxes there's also attached a small virtual harddrive (real .vdi file) with a mini Xubuntu Linux. This could act as a starter. But how would you edit the GRUB2 loader so that it loads an USB driver and then boot from the USB drive (USB ports are enabled in the Virtualbox) ?

To be more clear: When I boot the mini Xubuntu from the virtual harddrive, at boot time there's no USB device available, but if Xubuntu has been loaded I can see and access the USB drive. So there must be some USB driver which sees that USB device within Virtualbox?

(P.S. PLOP within Virtualbox doesn't work on that USB device. No matter of USB 1 or 2 setting. It just hangs, like some posters already noticed.)

[Sp00ky31]

There is a guide to do it easily with the brand new VirtualBox 4: http://www.dallagnese.fr/en/computers-i ... tualbox-4/

Enjoy

[rseiler]

That good looks great, but when I add the vmdk I just get this:



No idea what to do at this point.

I have v4.04 on W7 and have installed the same version of the Extensions. The USB thumb drive is in fact disk 2 according to disk administrator. I've also tried adding it with and without the USB section of Settings configured for the device, and with and without USB 2.0 being checked there. I even tried creating a second vmdk for another device, but no go.

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=e1212ff4
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description
RW 3948544 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive2" 0

# The disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
ddb.adapterType="ide"
ddb.geometry.cylinders="3917"
ddb.geometry.heads="16"
ddb.geometry.sectors="63"
ddb.uuid.image="46c5e09d-34c9-49fb-9f07-365ee7c21657"
ddb.uuid.parent="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.modification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.parentmodification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"

[mariusft]

Same problem,

If you are using Vista/Windows 7, due to access limitation rights you should run the VB with admin credentials. And it should work.

Regards,

[rseiler]

Same problem,

If you are using Vista/Windows 7, due to access limitation rights you should run the VB with admin credentials. And it should work.

Regards,

Thanks! That was it.

[Sysprobs]

It is always good to boot a virtual machine physically from USB when there are so many OS and utilities support USB boot. On Windows Vista, 7 and 8, you need to start the command prompt and VirtualBox program as administrator to make a raw VMDK file and attach it to virtual machine.
Check here more about how to boot a virtual machine from USB in VirtualBox.