Boot from an existing VHD with Ubuntu installation
I'm currently using Window 8 as host operating system and Ubuntu from a Virtual Box VHD. So my Ubuntu is running as virtual machine just fine with a few programs and development tools. But I now need to run in the Ubuntu environment some processes which require heavy processing and memory, so I would love to run them not in a virtual machine but as host operating system with the full resources available.
Is it possible to configure the machine to boot from that VHD I'm already using?
I have seen several posts on how to install a new Ubuntu with dual boot, configure dual boot inside a virtual machine, etc. I'v seen some MSDN post about booting from VHD, but that works only for Windows and it requires Windows Enterprise edition. I couldn't find anything for booting Ubuntu straight from a VHD. Is it possible? How?
22 Answers
You can boot from a VHD file using the windows 7/8 boot manager.
See the technet article Deploy a Virtual Hard Disk for Native Boot, Step 4: Deploy the VHD with native-boot capabilities.
Best regards,
Shocky
You can use Ventoy to boot vdisk file (vhd/vdi/raw ... with a Linux distro in it) on a real machine.
Both Legacy BIOS and UEFI are supported. The advantages of this model are:
- The Linux OS runs on a physical machine, not in a virtual machine, so there is no loss inefficiency.
- The Linux OS does not need a disk or partition, just in a file.
For example, Windows is your main OS, and you put some Ubuntu/Debian/Arch... VHD file in
D:\You can boot any of them as you want. If you don't need it anymore, just delete it as a normal file.
For details, you can search Ventoy Linux vDisk boot Plugin
