Thanks again @mpack... I got in touch with JinnKo, in my original post, and he helped me through it, so I've solved this issue myself with his help.
See
http://superuser.com/questions/373463/h ... ne/#458085 for JinnKo's version of the below.
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** The below is only for those who want to RISK permanently destroying their hard drive or flash storage drive *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***
Here are the steps I took:
1. Determine my SD Card device letter. *WITHOUT* inserting the SD card in your OS X Mtn Lion ( 10.8 ) system, do a:
$ mount
2. See what devices are in use *WITHOUT* the SD card inserted.
3. Insert the SD card, then do another:
$ mount
IMPORTANT: Using Disk Utility (Cmd-Space, type Disk Utility, press Enter), Unmount the partitions, if any, for the SD card. Do *NOT* eject the device, just *unmount only.*
4. Note the new device letter, as JinnKo mentions, without the sN, where N = 1, 2, 3, ... etc. IOW, if you see that your SD card is /dev/disk5s1, then what you want is without the 's1' at the end, meaning: /dev/disk5 (your number will likely be different than the '5'--be sure you get this number correct or you could destroy your hard drive/storage)!
5. Make sure you are the owner of this device. On 10.8 Mtn Lion, you will probably find that you aren't. Check it by doing:
# With the '*' you will see ALL your disk devices, you can also do: ls -l /dev/diskX to just see 'X', for instance, I did:
On Mtn Lion ( 10.8.x ) you will see something like:
brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, <today's date/time> /dev/diskX # Where 'X' is your device number, like /dev/disk5 ...
On Lion ( 10.7.x ), Snow Leopard (10.6.x ), or perhaps earlier versions of OS X, you will--if your username is 'brad'--likely see something like:
brw-r----- 1 brad operator 1, <today's date/time> /dev/diskX # Where 'X' is your device number, like /dev/disk5 ...
# If you are the owner, then all's good, nothing to do here, go to step 6.
# If you are not the owner (but 'root' is), then do the following (AGAIN, be *very sure* you are using the correct device number/letter here!):
*** CAUTION *** The below is only for those who want to RISK permanently destroying their hard drive or flash storage drive *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***
Code: Select all
sudo chown <your username> /dev/disk5
sudo chown <your username> /dev/disk5s1
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** The above is only for those who want to RISK permanently destroying their hard drive or flash storage drive *** CAUTION ***
# You will need to do it for ALL of your slices (s1, s2, s3, ... however many there are).
# For example, my username is 'brad', so I did: sudo chown brad /dev/disk5, then sudo chown brad /dev/disk5s1, then for s2, and s3 (since I had 3 existing partitions already)
# If you haven't partitioned the SD card, then you may only need to do the sudo chown <your username> /dev/diskX once (without doing any of the slices/partitions)
6. Now (a) SHUTDOWN (don't just suspend, but fully shut down!) your Ubuntu VM, then (b) create a raw VMDK for that SD card, as so (again *SUBSTITUTE* the correct numbers/letters for your drive--don't just copy/paste this without changing it--and if you copy the carriage return <Enter> into your terminal it'll execute immediately--substitute for <your username> or home directory, the actual location/name of your VM for Ubuntu (instead of the 'Ubuntu 12.04' below), and substitute for the 'X' with '5' or whatever device number your SD card is, *when it's inserted*--double check this letter and don't do this if you aren't sure!!):
Code: Select all
$ VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "/Users/<your username>/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu 12.04/sdcard.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/diskX
7. Using Disk Utility (Cmd-Space, type Disk Utility, press Enter), Unmount the partitions, if any for the SD card.
8. Open up the VirtualBox UI, choose Storage | SATA or IDE (I used SATA, not sure if IDE will work too or not) Controller | click the icon to the right and choose Add Hard Disk | then choose "Use existing disk", then browse to the location of the sdcard.vmdk file specified in step 6. above. Choose it, voila. NOTE: If you can't choose Storage or the icon for the Add hard drive is grayed out, your VM is probably still running! Shut it down first!!
9. If you get errors when starting up your VM, try checking Disk Utility again to ensure that the partitions haven't been auto-remounted by Mtn Lion; if they have, just unmount them again (don't eject, just unmount--see steps 3 or 7 above), then try starting up your VM again.
Hope this helps someone else!
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** The above is only for those who want to RISK permanently destroying their hard drive or flash storage drive *** CAUTION ***
*** CAUTION *** DO *NOT* DO THIS if you aren't sure you know what you're doing *** CAUTION ***