Install WinXP from USB optical drive

[gurrgle]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to VirtualBox and having trouble installing Windows XP as a guest system using an external CD/DVD drive.

What happens is that VirtualBox boots to the WinXP installation CD and goes through the first part of the installation flawlessly. After XP restarts from the HD, however, it can't complete the installation because it can't find the files at "D:\I386\asms". This seems to be because it can't access the CD/DVD drive. I'm just guessing, but could this be because of how VirtualBox handles USB drives and/or because (if I recall) XP lacks native support for USB? Any suggestions?

Hardware and software specs:
--Lenovo ThinkPad X201
--Asus SDRW-08D1S-U external USB CD/DVD drive
--Ubuntu 10.04.1 64-bit (kernel 2.6.32-30)
--VirtualBox 4.0.4 (from http://download.virtualbox.org)
--WinXP SP2 32-bit (original, retail install disc)

Many thanks,
gurrgle

[vbox4me2]

Create an ISO and mount that instead.

[gurrgle]

Many thanks. That was exactly the ticket.

For anyone else who may struggle with this, here are the details: To mount the ISO, start VirtualBox, select the relevant virtual machine, and press the Settings button. Under the Storage tab, select the IDE Controller and press the Add CD/DVD Device button at right. At the popup, press Choose Disk, the navigate to the ISO and select it. Close out of the Settings dialog, and press Start. The virtual machine should boot to the ISO as if it were a CD.