VirtualBox physical mapping

[[Category:Virtualbox]

Create a virtual mapping to your physical Windows

In my example it is on partitions 1 and 2 of the disk.
This helps me to work around problems with installing Windows updates and grub. Some Windows updates are failing if you have grub in your MBR.

Create a dummy mbr

# apt install mbr
# install-mbr /var/data/VMs/dev/mbr.img

Create the mapping as a VMDK file

# VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /var/data/VMs/dev/Windows-physical.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,2 -mbr /var/data/VMs/dev/mbr.img

After that create a VM and use this special VMDK file.