Virtualbox virtual hard drive questions...

[haywire]

Can someone please tell me, is there a way for me to access the files on the virtual hard drive through linux, or only the shared folders?

For example, I have windows xp installed and I'd like to have an icon somewhere for a windows hard drive to access the windows files...

Or can I only access the shared folders?

I'd like to do the same thing for os2 if I ever find a good copy of os2 4.5...

Any ideas?

Steven

[M0E-lnx]

I tried the same thing and did a  bit of research on the subject, but I found out it was harder than I was willing to try, so I just did shared folders instead. They used to ship something called 'vditool' with vbox, but afaik, that's not available anymore.

You can go to google.com/linux and search for "moutn virtualbox vdi" and see how the process works, but like I said, I didn't test any of them.

[haywire]

MOE-lnx,

Wow I just did some more research myself, and your right, it is a PITA. I think I'll just use shared drives too.  I'm glad I'm not the only one who said screw it its not worth this kind of hassle.

Steven

[M0E-lnx]

What I found out is that it's a lot easier to use a physical partition or in my case a USB drive as a virtualbox disk image, that way everything gets written directly to the drive.

I have a custom built linux that I did on an external USB drive that I can carry around. It was done in VBox, and if booted in vbox, has built-in guest additions

But I can also grab that same USB drive, stick it in any box, and boot off the USB. Works wonders

And, that way, if I need to get anything off it, without booting, I just mount the partition, and get it.

[haywire]

Sounds like a great idea, can you give me some more details about how you go about that, like what do you do fomat it and install in virtualbox?, and so on.
That could work well for what I had in mind, I will be using a bunch of usb drives actually, well ide drives on usb converters...

I'd appreciate any help you could be explaining exactly how I can go about this.

Steven

[M0E-lnx]

Is your drive going to be plugged in a USB connection or is it a physical partition on an internal drive?

Also, which os is the host system? windows or linux?

With that information, I can put together a setup process for you

[Daniel]

Is your drive going to be plugged in a USB connection or is it a physical partition on an internal drive?

Also, which os is the host system? windows or linux?

With that information, I can put together a setup process for you

I would like to know about the setup process too. Could you maybe make it into a HowTo?

[M0E-lnx]

Here is a rough run down of the process.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=12176.new#new

I'm not testing this as I'm going along, so post any problems you get with it, and we'll try to get them fixed.

[Daniel]

Will the existing installation still boot normally after the vmdk is created from it?

[M0E-lnx]

Yes.. The vmdk will not harm the existing data on the partition.
It is merely a link pointing to the device, in a format that vbox can understand.