VirtualBox USB – How to Boot from a USB Drive in VirtualBox

live-usbvirtualbox

The question is simple and straight forward:

How to boot from an USB drive in VirtualBox?

EDIT:

I have attached usb to VirtualBox as shown in the screenshot.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPZZo.png

But it is not possible to boot from an USB drive even when attached (reference).

So I would like to know if there is any other possiblity to boot from an USB drive?

Best Answer

VirtualBox itself does not support booting from a USB device. In order to boot from a USB device, another bootloader is required. The steps below provide one possible way to accomplish this:

  1. Download Plop Boot Manager (currently v5.0.15)
  2. Extract the file plpbt.iso from the ZIP archive and save it somewhere.

  3. Open the settings for the virtual machine and attach the ISO file:

    enter image description here

  4. Add a filter for the USB device:

    enter image description here

  5. Boot the VM and select the "USB" option in the menu:

    enter image description here

If all went well, the machine should now boot from the USB device.

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