Enlarge a Virtual Disk in VirtualBox. To enlarge a virtual disk in VirtualBox, you’ll need to use the VBoxManage command from a Command Prompt window. First, shut down the virtual machine – ensure its state is set to Powered Off, not Saved. Apr 04, 2010 Select the correct guest OS, processor type and memory size. In virtual hard disk box select ‘Use existing Hard Disk’ and browse the disk you added by vmdk file in VirtualBox media manager. So your new virtual machine will boot from vmdk disk which we converted from physical to virtual. 7) That’s it. Boot the virtual machine now.
I made a smug comment ('Straight forward') when this question was originally posted and found myself at this page some months later looking for the same answerStraight forward instructionsToday, I managed to boot from physical drives. This achievement required;. 60 min straight forward reading. 30 min writing this.20 min trying different options in VirtualBoxDear reader, your attention is directed at the fact that it is equally straight forward to kill your data when the disc is accessed in this manner. The procedure on how to accomplish this is left as an exercise.Pics (it did happen:)1.
Create vmdk drives that read from real drivesTo create an image that represents an entire physical hard disk (which will not contain any actual data, as this will all be stored on the physical disk), on a Linux host, use the command VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdaYou must have read access to the physical disk device file /dev/sda. To accomplish this you can either change the owner and access rights of the device file or run VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk as root (put sudo before the command).On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use e.g.PhysicalDrive0. On a Mac OS X host, use e.g. /dev/disk1 (and unmount all partitions on disk1). (all on one line)C:VirtualBoxDrives'C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBoxVBoxManage.exe'internalcommands createrawvmdk-filename C:VirtualBoxDrivesraw-0.vmdk-rawdisk.PHYSICALDRIVE0(output)RAW host disk access VMDK file C:VirtualBoxDrivesraw-0.vmdk created successf.2.
Assign the vmdk drives to a VMVM - Settings - Storage - add ide / sata - Choose existing disk - browse3. Set one of the Writethrough modes.File - Virtual Media Manager - e.g raw-0.vmdk - modify - (o) Writethrough. repeat for all drives3. Reorder boot-priority (semi optional)VM - Settings - System - Boot order./ Hard Disk./ CD/DVD Floppy NetworkVM - Settings - Storage - Controller: SATA - e.g.
Raw-5.vmdk - Hard Disk: Sata Port 0Relevant chapters.Chapter 9. Advanced topics. 9.9. Advanced storage configuration.
9.9.1. Using a raw host hard disk from a guest. 9.9.1.1. Access to entire physical hard disk.Chapter 5. Virtual storage. 5.2.
Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD). 5.3.
The Virtual Media Manager. 5.4. Thanks very much for the clear step by step instructions. One problem I have had however is that the virtual.vmdk file can be owned by me as a user but when I start VirtualBox and it tries to access it an error is generated. This appears to be because the physical /dev/sda is owned by root. I tried changing ownership but no joy - still same error.
Logical Disk
Starting VirtualBox as root does work (though I'm always cautious about running any application as root, and one such as this with the potential for so much to go wrong scares me silly).– user339549 Jun 28 '14 at 17:44.