Installing Arch on a VirtualBox, then transferring it

virtualbox

I have only one computer and it's nicely set up. I need to install Arch for a while to test something, so I was wondering if it is possible to install it on a Virtual disk via VirtualBox, and if need should arise, to transfer it like it was installed on a physical partition (like you normally would)?

What are the possible problems that can arise? What should I be careful of?
(I don't need advice regarding arch, just the VM part)

I'm using Sun's VirtualBox, on an XP machine.

Best Answer

This is easy if you left a large enough amount of space in the guest empty. You could simply back it up with the dd utility and then copy it to an external hard drive, and use dd again to restore it.

an example:

dd if=/dev/hda | gzip > /path/to/image.gz

then to restore it to another hard drive or partition:

gzip -dc /path/to/image.gz | dd of=/dev/hda
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