virtualbox.org

Hi, I'm very new to VMs. I'd like to create a VM which matches our standard corporate build which is based on a self-booting USB (approx 28GB) supplied by our external support vendor.

VirtualBox seems to expect an ISO or similar image, which is not what we have - is there any way I can do what I want?

Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 BTW, 32-bit

Cheers

Virtualbox does not have a built-in way to boot from a USB stick. Perhaps the files in the image on the stick could be made into an ISO?
There are a few personally-untested tutorials on the web that uses Virtualbox's raw disk access to mount the usb as a disk drive in the guest. Try googling "Virtualbox boot from usb"

Thanks for that. I think however I may have misrepresented the case

What I want to do is create a VM from the USB stick which INSTALLS our standard version of Windows.

I tried the instructions at https://www.maketecheasier.com/boot-fro ... irtualbox/ but the install fails with a variety of messages depending on what settings I've selected:
In Settings, version = Windows 7 32-bit (which I am informed is correct),, the VM starts and displays "Loading Files" as if installing in real life, then I get error I press Enter and get I press F8 and get the first screen again again ..............

I've checked a few other sites all of whom advise the same process. Is it possible to do what I want to do?

Cheers

Assuming that the USB stick contains boot code and an installer exe then the advice Scottgus gave you is correct. You should try creating a bootable CD image (a.k.a. an ISO), and copy all of the files off of the USB stick and into the ISO. You can then keep the ISO file on a USB stick if that's what you need.

You can also ask your IT people for a bootable CD instead of a USB stick. Imaging the CD creates an ISO, or perhaps your IT people can just give you the ISO.

The VirtualBox VM BIOS does not understand USB mass storage, so it isn't possible to boot a VM from a USB stick. The VM can only access USB after a guest OS has finished booting up and had loaded the necessary drivers.

If the IT guys won't cooperate, try a google on this: "convert bootable usb to iso"

Thanks - yes the stick is bootable and in normal life will install Windows on the target machine. Challenge for creating an ISO is that there's about 30GB on the stick including one .wmi file > 4GB

Cheers

Sounds like you want a bootable installing virtual disk file you attach as another virtual disk to your guests, maybe? And the OS installs from the bootable virtual disk, which you then disconnect after install is complete?

If so, very interesting. I would first try making an ISO out of the USB stick anyway, it might work. ISOs have been expanded to Blu-ray sizes.

Then I'd try using Microsoft Sysinternals' Disk2VHD on the USB contents. Make a VHD, not a VHDX. See if that will boot.

The I'd try this Superuser thread's ideas, http://superuser.com/questions/635211/c ... achine-hdd

scottgus1 wrote:Sounds like you want a bootable installing virtual disk file you attach as another virtual disk to your guests, maybe? And the OS installs from the bootable virtual disk, which you then disconnect after install is complete?

Well I did say I was new to VMs What I want is to be able to install our standard build into a VM, run some tests, and repeat as often as needed from the bare bones of our standard build. if that means I need to do what you said, I'll give it a go

Thanks

Oh, OK, that's a standard install of the OS then. You can use the earlier tutorial to get the guest to boot from the USB stick. Note that the tutorial is not a Virtualbox tutorial and success may or may not be possible, as well as many of us forum users may not have tried it, so getting help for it may be harder than normal.

Also try making a bootable ISO, or getting IT to give you a bootable ISO or Blu-ray.

Once you have the guest installed you can use a single snapshot to allow dumping of changes. See the manual and ask questions on the forum about using snapshots - they're frowned on for production guests, but suitable for use in experimental guests. (An alternate procedure not using snapshots would be to get the guest installed, then shut down the guest and make a Windows folder copy of the guest's virtual disk file. Keep the copy safe, and when you wish to reset the guest, shut down the guest, delete the modified original virtual disk file, and make another copy of the saved copy, renaming the third copy to be the same name as the original.)