VirtualBox – How to Boot from a Flash Drive OS

bootusb-flash-drivevirtualbox

I have two flash drive, one with Slax installed and another for Android x86 Live installed, but they do not boot in my laptop (in my work they boot perfectly).

I can boot from some live CDs/DVDs or its ISO files using VirtualBox, but I cannot do it for live flash drives – I put the flash drives and start a VirtualBox without any virtual HD, but VirtualBox does not recognize them as boot options, as it does for CDs/DVDs.

Any ideas? Any alternatives if VirtualBox does not support it?

Edit1: I'm using Windows (Windows 7) but I would like to know how to do it in Linux (Ubuntu, for example) too.

Best Answer

For Windows, see this article : Boot your USB Drive in VirtualBox.
For Linux, the same approach is described in : How to boot from USB in virtualbox on Ubuntu.

The approach is to attach a physical drive to a virtual machine using the VBoxManage command-line tool that comes bundled with VirtualBox. You can then boot your virtual machine from the attached Physical drive.

Alternatively, and only for Windows, Linux Live USB Creator (formerly uSbuntu) is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable Live USB key with a Linux on it. It offers the option of automatic virtualization using portable VirtualBox to directly run Linux in Windows without any configuration nor installation.

Materials

2  computers
    1  computer with the problematic (GIGABYTE) motherboard
    1  computer for write operations to flash drives
2  USB FDDs
    1  (tiny capacity) flash drive for Plop Boot Manager
    1  (larger) flash drive for the anticipated boot disk
1  open USB slot

Setup

Download Plop Boot Manager. Get plpbt-x.x.x.zip (where x.x.x is the latest version number).
Extract the .zip file you downloaded.
In the folder resulting from the extraction, find plpbt.img.
Unmount your tiny FDD.
Write the file (Plop Boot Manager) to the beginning of your tiny FDD with this:

Linux: sudo dd if=plpbt.img of=/dev/sdn

Mac: sudo dd if=plpbt.img of=/dev/diskn

(Assumes that you changed directories (cd plpbt-*) into the extracted folder. Replace the value of the of= parameter with the path of your particular flash drive. Be careful with this command by checking it for correctness!)

Windows: Use Win32 Image Writer to write the .img file.
If you haven't already, write the bootable operating system to your other flash drive like normal.

Usage

Plug the Plop Boot Manager FDD into the computer with the problematic (GIGABYTE) motherboard.
Reboot or power on that computer. On GIGABYTE motherboards, press F12 at the BIOS splash.
Select the Plop Boot Manager FDD for booting. On GIGABYTE motherboards, choose either USB-ZIP or USB-HDD. The flash drive is actually recognized as a floppy, not a regular flash drive.
Plop Boot Manager should now be running. There may be a starfield screensaver in the background.
Plug in the other FDD. (Exchange with the Plop Boot Manager FDD if you're out of slots.)
Select the flash drive option from the Plop Boot Manager menu.

Now the bootable flash drive operating system should be starting up!

As a bonus, there are other uses for your Plop Boot Manager FDD now, and it can be your "key" to other possible booting issues you might encounter.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mac – How to access USB flash drive in VirtualBox

Can’t boot flash drive on GIGABYTE motherboard

Materials

Setup

Usage

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