Boot from hardware USB devices in Virtual Machines
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Virtualization software allows a wide variety of boot options, like ISO files, etc. If you would like to boot from hardware USB devices, you may run into problems. Here is how it works.
Introduction
If you would like to boot a virtual machine, the boot media must be available before starting the machine. This may be a problem, when mapping real USB devices, because they are not.
Boot from ISO to boot from USB
The Plop Boot Manager is available as a small ISO file and is able to provide a boot redirect to usb.
So all you have to do is:
- Create a VM you would like to boot from real USB hardware
- Download Plop Boot Manager ISO
- Boot a VM from Plop ISO
- Make the USB device available in the VM
- Select “USB” from the boot menu
- Voilá - it boots from USB!
BTW: This is very powerful when combined with Ventoy ;-)
