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Custom OS with VirtualBox (Boot loader)

Posted: 4. Aug 2011, 17:23
by Haroogan
I've got my own boot loader for some custom OS and I would like to boot it with VirtualBox. I'm pretty sure that it's possible.

First of all I've tried to write the first 512 bytes of *.vdi file, since I thought that virtual hard drive (the one you create for guest OS) is purely mapped into corresponding *.vdi file. After starting a crash happened. Therefore, I decided to check if *.vdi has something like a header (which I must have overwritten) and some internal structure. Yeah, it has one.

So the question is where should I write my 512 byte boot loader inside *.vdi to be able to boot. Let's talk about STATIC *.vdi's only (in case of simplicity).

Thanks in advance. BTW, I've read this.

Re: Custom OS with VirtualBox (Boot loader)

Posted: 4. Aug 2011, 19:39
by mpack
That discussion is too technical and esoteric for this forum. As a developer you should find TerryE's VDI tutorial a great introduction, everything else about the structure can be found in the VBox source code. I know from experience that it's easy to find and to follow.