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Access secondary hard disk from Virtual Machine

rated 0 times [ 0] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 7719 / 1 Year ago, fri, december 16, 2022, 10:48:18

I have a fairly specific question.

I had Ubuntu on my Laptop (for years). For a variety of reasons, I've had to switch to Windows but the computer has two hard drives. The main drive was reformatted and I've installed windows. The second hard drive still has the Linux system disk format (not sure on type). Obviously, windows can't access it but can I access it from a Virtual machine (VirtualBox) or will I need to load up a Live-Session to access / move the contents?

Edit: If this is possible, how would one proceed to mount the disk?

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answered 1 Year ago ongdiligenc · Accepted Answer

In all honesty, I do not think so.

The reason for this:

Disclaimer: I loooove deductive reasoning. Brace yourself.

Let's look at out information, shall we:

You have 2 hard drives. One of them has windows installed, the other uses a (currently) unknown linux filesystem.

You want to create a Virtual machine. To do so, you need special software known as a Virtual Machine Hypervizor. An example of such software is VirtualBox.

Windows is unable to use the hard drive at its current format.

To create a virtual machine, you need to create a file that will act as a virtual hard drive. That file has to be stored somewhere.

Since windows can not access the hard drive as is, it is highly unlikely it can use it to provide services to software running on it, like a Hypervizor (e.g Storage)

So, the virtual machine will have to be stored on the hard drive that windows is installed on. =(

Unless you get very technical in virtual machines or are a highly skilled computer hacker, there is (very very ...) little chance that you can access the host (physical computer) from the guest (virtual machine)

TL:DR: Theoretically anything that contains a virtual machine is highly unlikely to help.

However, you might be able to use partitioning software to format the hard drive and make it available to Windows.