Right-click on USB partition and select ‘Unmount USB name’ģ) Type following command in terminal to create VMDK file of the USB disk. The next command will not work without unmounting the USB disk. In this example, /dev/disk2s2 is mine.Ģ) Now go to disk utility (Go – Utilities- Disk Utility) and unmount the partition of the USB disk. It shows the USB disk path, note it down since we need to use it later. Open the Terminal ( Go – Utilities- Terminal) and type mount Because we need to use the disk path in the next command. VirtualBox Boot from USB in Macġ) Attach the bootable USB disk and find out the disk path.

VirtualBox has a hidden feature to enable this USB boot support.īasically, we need to create a VMDK file based on the attached USB disk and mount the VMDK as virtual machine’s first bootable disk and boot it. Nowadays, most of the PC utilities and Operating Systems have the feature to create a portable and bootable USB disk which can be used in varies ways. Oracle VirtualBox is one of the best and free desktop virtualization software which allows running multiple Operating Systems on the single computer. This method will be useful if you have a bootable Live Linux on USB and you want to try that on VirtualBox. The below guide explains the steps of how I managed to boot a VirtualBox virtual machine from USB on macOS and Windows host computers. Unfortunately, it is not supported by most of the desktop virtualization software as a built-in feature yet. Sometimes booting a virtual machine from USB is necessary to install an Operating System as a guest on VirtualBox if you do not have ISO file.

Access thumb drive virtualbox linux