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

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1. apt install mbr
2. install-mbr /var/data/VMs/dev/mbr.img

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Create the mapping as a VMDK file

<source lang=bash>

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

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