VBoxRawdisk - a macOS utility to generate rawdisk VMDKs

[granada29]

I have written VBoxRawdisk, a utility for macOS to help use a raw disk with VirtualBox.

This is the first release and should be considered alpha level software.

The software does nothing that you can't do manually with VBoxManage, diskutil and the command line. However - I frequently use raw disks and doing it manually got to be a pain in the butt.

I am very open to suggestions for improvements to how it is operating and welcome any feedback.

Be warned - if you don't know what you are doing it is very easy to destroy data by overwriting the wrong files or selecting the wrong drives.

VBoxRawdisk will only work with whole disks - i.e. it has no provision for using raw partitions.

Usage and limitations are described at https://www.whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html#usage
The link to download the utility is also on this page.

Regards
Bryan

[Mod edit: e-mail address removed]

[socratis]

Is this a "reply" to the problem you were facing two year ago in "Raw Disk Partitions"? It seems like it.
I'll give it a shot and let you know...

I removed your e-mail address from the post, just to avoid spamming.

[granada29]

Is this a "reply" to the problem you were facing two year ago in "Raw Disk Partitions"? It seems like it.
I'll give it a shot and let you know...

Heh - I suppose it is a "reply". I finally got sick of doing it manually and figured a Swift wrapper around the necessary commands would make my life easier.

It works OK for me but with different systems/configs? Be good to find out what I need to improve.

B

[socratis]

I will move this from "OSX Hosts" to the "Third Party Applications" forum.

[granada29]

VBoxRawdisk is updated to Version 1.1.0
Download from https://www.whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html

[granada29]

VBoxRawdisk is updated to Version 1.2.0
It can now handle raw partitions (previously entire disk only).

Download from https://www.whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html

[socratis]

It seems that the author 'granada29' has released versions 1.3.0, 1.3.1 and 1.3.2. From the VBoxRawdisk website, and based on the timestamp of the files:

• 1.3.0 was released on 2017-09-14.
• 1.3.1 was released on 2018-09-13.
• 1.3.2 was released on 2018-09-27.

[socratis]

It seems that the author 'granada29' has released versions 1.3.3 and 1.3.4. From the VBoxRawdisk website, and based on the timestamp of the files:

• 1.3.3 was released on 2019-01-09.
• 1.3.4 was released on 2019-03-29.

[granada29]

I have just released vboxrawdisk-1.3.6 on my web site at https://whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html

This version is compiled with Xcode 12.2 and will run on macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) through macOS 11 (Big Sur).

There will be no 'universal' build of the software as there is little point in running it on an ARM based Mac.

[granada29]

Unfortunately VirtualBox 7.0.0 still has some bugs with rawdisk vmdk files. I'll release a new version of VBoxRawdisk when these bugs have been resolved.

I have raised a VirtualBox 7.0.0 bug report at https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/21125

[granada29]

The problems with generating VMDK files for raw disks in VirtualBox 7 have been resolved in the current test version of VirtualBox 7.0.3

I have released VBoxRawdisk 1.3.8 for use with VirtualBox 7.0.3 or later. Download from https://whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html

VBoxRawdisk also supports VirtualBox 6.1.x but is now limited to macOS Sierra (10.13) or later.

[granada29]

I have released VBoxRawdisk-1.4.0 and it is now available for download from https://www.whatroute.net/vboxrawdisk.html

This version has been tested on Apple Silicon under macOS Sonoma, using VirtualBox-7.0.97-162957-macOSArm64

A raw Linux-x86_64 disk boots and runs, albeit slowly.
MS-Windows 10 boots but hangs during initialisation with guest OS errors and has to be powered off.

In both instances there is significant host CPU overhead but the Oracle developers have indicated that this will improve in time.