virtualbox.org

Hello,
is it possible to boot from USB-devices in VirutalBox 4.04 OSE (r70112).
I can not find or add the bootoption in the "boot order".
The USB-devices i can use in the "Guest-OS" but i can not boot from
this USB-device(s).
Thanks
ds2k5

The Virtualbox-BIOS doesn't support booting from USB.
The only (unsupported) workaround is to try using raw disk access for your USB device.

Martin wrote:The only (unsupported) workaround is to try using raw disk access for your USB device.

In fact there's a supported workaround: locate your virtual disk or your whole VM on the USB drive. Not that I consider that a good idea: personally if I wanted a portable VM I would keep it on the USB drive, but copy it onto the main drive when I want to use it. I can go get a coffee while the files are a-copyin....

Under no circumstances would I use the raw disk feature on a drive whose contents I cared about.

If you are brave enough, add your USB disk with rawdisk access, add it to your storage, and boot from it. Details were posted a while ago on this forum and the step-by-step info is here: http://agnipulse.com/2009/07/boot-your- ... irtualbox/

If you worry about the contents of your USB, make a backup of it first, with dd on Linux or some disk-image-read/write tool on Windows (I used Roadkil's Disk Image once to clone some nice multi-boot USB flash disk).

qkb wrote:If you worry about the contents of your USB, make a backup of it first

Makes little sense IMHO. If you are going to copy the drive contents anyway then then you might as well just use the copy. Why have the raw disk complication?

mpack wrote:Makes little sense IMHO. If you are going to copy the drive contents anyway then then you might as well just use the copy. Why have the raw disk complication?

Very true. But ds2k5 may want to skip the backup part. Or maybe something that starts from USB will modify the content of USB disk and s/he wants to keep the changes there?

There are usually many ways to do things and everybody should have a right to choose the most complicated one

I suggest using PloP boot manager (http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html). It has a boot from usb feature and a livecd.