is it possible to create a running OS from a vdi file?

Kwnstantinos1980 · Post by **Kwnstantinos1980** » 22. Oct 2008, 21:46

hi,

I am new to VirtualBox. I wonder if I can use a .vdi file in any way to "extract" the containing operating system to use it on my hard disk.

tnx in advance

Post by **TerryE** » 22. Oct 2008, 22:17

Yes you can but its rather convolved to do so. Basically you need to use the createrawvmdk (see User Guide) to create a virtual disk which maps onto a host raw partition. You can then create a temporary VM using Gparted LiveCD or equivalent (see my tutorial All about VDIs for more details) to copy the VDI partition to raw partition. You then need to fix the bootstrap in the host, plus sort out the driver issues in the imaged OS -- complicated but doable if you know what you are doing.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 22. Oct 2008, 23:16

You could also try some imaging software that has network setup, create a network share on your Host and set that as the image location for the backup you will make of the OS installed on the VDI. When that is done, reboot your PC and boot that same imaging program and point to the created image to restore.
Software I know that can do this, is Acronis True Image. However, you have to pay for it. CloneZilla might have network support too and is free. I'm sure there is more software with these features.

Both methods are kind of convolved as Terry said. It would be faster to do a clean install, unless you have a lot of settings done that take a lot of time to restore.

Kwnstantinos1980 · Post by **Kwnstantinos1980** » 23. Oct 2008, 22:52

thank you very much. It really sounds that installing a fresh copy is less difficult and safes time. But it would be very helpfull to have such an automated procedure for applying .vdi files to a harddisk.

thanks guys!

Post by **mpack** » 24. Oct 2008, 13:05

Kwnstantinos1980 wrote:it would be very helpfull to have such an automated procedure for applying .vdi files to a harddisk.

Such a procedure would involve trashing a host hard disk partition. The potential for catastrophe is great, so IMHO there is no way VBox should ever provide this as an easily reached feature! It should remain cumbersome, something a user has to work hard to do.