Using an external HD hooked up with usb

[ALFGGM]

Is there a simple way to use a USB connected hard drive that has an operating system previously installed (windows XP) to run with VB?

[mpack]

The only simple way is to image/clone the drive to a virtual form - using Disk2VHD is easiest, if you are using a Windows host. Then use CloneVDI to convert the VHD to VirtualBox's native format, VDI. You can keep the clone on your local hard disk, or you can reformat the USB drive and store the clone back there.

Others may suggest raw access to the USB drive: ignore them unless you enjoy having your hard disk trashed.

[ALFGGM]

What other raw disk image files does the CloneVDI tool support?

[mpack]

What other raw disk image files does the CloneVDI tool support?

I don't understand the question - raw is raw.

The capabilities of the CloneVDI tool are discussed in the CloneVDI support thread. If you download the executable zip from there then you can also read the release notes.

[ALFGGM]

In the FAQ (in release notes) it states:What does it do?
A. It makes copies of (i.e. clones) Oracle VirtualBox Virtual Disk Image (VDI) files. It can also
convert Microsoft VHD, VMWare VMDK, Parallels HDD (v2), raw disk or partition image files,
and even physical Windows drives - into a VDI file. Note that CloneVDI is not a GUI for VBoxManage,
it is entirely stand-alone, using my own code for reading and writing VDI, and for reading the
other supported formats.

By raw disk, does it mean some other raw image file format (.iso eg ) or just the data in its original form.
If that is the case couldn't this program alone be used to create a VDI file rather than first creating a VHD?

[mpack]

CloneVDI makes clones of hard disk images in various source formats. "ISO" is a loose term for a CD/DVD image, not a hard disk image, and hence CloneVDI will do nothing useful with it.