How to boot from a flash drive OS using VirtualBox?

Posted by kokbira on Super User See other posts from Super User or by kokbira
Published on 2011-08-02T19:11:08Z Indexed on 2012/03/21 23:33 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 344

Filed under:

boot

|

virtualbox

|

usb-flash-drive

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.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about boot

Dual Boot issues with Windows 7 and Ubuntu

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I'm finding myself in a rather unique situation. I've read through just about every resource I can find about this and while things have helped me understand some background, I haven't yet been able to find a solution. So I'm asking here. I originally had just a Windows 7 64-bit OS installation on… >>> More
Windows 7 wont boot from any boot loader except for 'Windows Boot Manager' after partition resize

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a triple boot system on a single SSD. OSX, Windows 7, and Ubuntu. I use Chimera (basically another version of Chameleon) as my boot loader. Usually I can boot all 3 without any issue, but after using GParted to make my Ubuntu partition 2 Gigs larger, Windows 7 throws me an error when trying… >>> More
Unable to boot Windows 7 after installing Ubuntu

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have Windows 7 on my machine and then installed Ubuntu 12.04 using a live CD. I can see both Windows 7 and Ubuntu in the grub menu, but when I select Windows 7 it shows a black screen for about 2 seconds and the returns to the Grub menu. But if I select Ubuntu it's working fine. This is the contents… >>> More
12.04 upgrade broke grub? (not wubi related)

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I just updated from 11.10 to 12.04, with no major problems (it took a while to get past a request to restart ssh, mysql and some other services, but I did no fiddling by myself, everything was done by the installer). However, after restarting, grub can't do anything. Picking the new linux installation… >>> More
Another "Windows 7 entry missing from Grub2" Question

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Like many before me had the following problem that after installing Ubuntu (with windows 7 already installed), the grub boot loader wouldnt show windows 7 as a boot option, though i can boot fine if I use the "Choose Boot Device" options on the x220. The difference is that I try using UEFI only so… >>> More

Related posts about virtualbox

Virtualbox on Ubuntu 12.04 and 3.5 kernel

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have installed the 3.5 kernel under Ubuntu 12.04. When I install virtualbox I recieve the following error. Setting up virtualbox (4.1.12-dfsg-2ubuntu0.2) ... * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ] * Starting VirtualBox kernel… >>> More
Linux VirtualBox inside Windows VirtualBox doesn't boot

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to run a Linux VirtualBox instance inside a Windows 7 VirtualBox instance, but Linux (tried both Puppy and Mint) doesn't boot. My research says that this should be possible, see here for example: Can you run one virtual machine inside another? but I can't get it to work. Here are a couple… >>> More
VirtualBox Issue: virtualbox changed my Computer Name's ip address in Windows

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I had installed virtualbox 4.2.2 in Windows 7. My Computer Name is: MY-PC My IP address (using ipconfig /all command) is: 192.168.1.101 My IP is dynamic and I set DNS to google dns (8.8.8.8) When I ping MY-PC, I got this result: Pinging MY-PC [192.168.56.1] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192… >>> More
Ubuntu 13.10 install ISO crashes on VirtualBox Mac 4.3

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Does anybody know what to do about this? Machine is a 2008 Core 2 Duo iMac with 4GB RAM. (And 64bit Debian 7 boots OK, but I've not tried installing under the latest version of VirtualBox as I have just upgraded VBox today.) VirtualBox 4.3, upon trying to boot a machine with the Ubuntu 13.10 (64bit)… >>> More
Cannot install virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms on Ubuntu 10.04

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 and kernel: 2.6.38-11-generic-pae. While using VirtualBox, i got this error: Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908) Please install the virtualbox-ose-dkms package and execute 'modprobe vboxdrv' as root. I tried to execute the command: sudo modprobe vboxdrv and got… >>> More