How to boot from USB in VirtualBox?

VirtualBox is an excellent tool that allows us to be able to virtualize operating systems of which it has the support for GNU / Linux, Mac OS X, OS / 2, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, MS-DOS and many others.

With this popular tool we save resources, we can learn about new systems without having to compromise our information, test applications from other systems and above all have several systems and be able to use them without uninstalling the one we have.

VirtualBox It is highly known for the characteristics it offers us, for its use we usually use ISO images of the systems that we are going to run on VirtualBox,

It also allows us to use the resources that our team has.

In this case a problem has occurred to me and it is that I had to start a system that I already have on a USB so when trying to boot this device in VirutalBox, it is not possible in a normal way.

The logical thing would be to place the USB in the list of devices in the configuration of the Virtual machine, but by surprise it was not like that.

For this I searched the net and found this simple solution that I share with you.

Use USB to boot a system in VirtualBox

We will rely on a function that is not in sight and it is that we must use part of the VBoxManage command, in order to achieve this.

The first thing we must do is identify the mounting point of our USB that has the system. Now if you have VirutalBox open, you need to close it.

To do this we must open a terminal (ctrl + T) and execute the following command:

sudo fdisk -l 

In my case my USB mount point is / dev / sdc. This may vary depending on the amount of storage devices they have connected at the time.

Mount point already identified, on the same terminal, we are going to execute the following command, it is important that it is run with privileges:

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdc1 

Where We are telling you to create a new virtual disk which will be pointed directly to our USB device.

Now We should not remove our USB device until we finish the task with which it was originally intended.

The next step will be to open VirtualBox again and we will go to the settings of the virtual machine where we will occupy our device.

Now we head In the Storage section, we add a new virtual drive and instead of creating a new unit, we are going to select an existing one.

In this case we are going to select the one that you just created with the previous command.

Done now we are going to save the virtual machine settings and proceed to start the system to verify that the virtual drive is actually pointing to our USB.

Finally, you only have to define the time of use, at the end of this, we go back to the settings of the virtual machine and proceed to remove the unit from the list of devices.

Using Plop Boot Manager

This is another option that I found on the net, from my point of view something simpler if you think that the previous method is complicated.

Among the options it offers us we find:

• Be able to perform a USB boot no BIOS support.
• We have the ability to hide partitions.
• We can define up to 16 partitions.
• Boot count.

This little tool allows us to boot from the USB in the following way.

First we must download this tool that comes a disk image, the link is this.

Once the download is done, we proceed to mount the ISO like any other from the VirtualBox settings.

Once this is done, we save the settings and proceed to run the virtual machine.

The following screen will be shown.

And now we can select the power to start from the USB.

If this method has been useful to you, do not hesitate to share it on your networks and if you know of any other method for this case, do not hesitate to share it with us in the comments.