Boot with a USB flash drive in VirtualBox

The command is actually very simple:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "%USERPROFILE%"\.VirtualBox\usb.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDriveX

X indicates the USB flash disk number in the disk manager. If your machine is a single hard disk, the hard disk number is 0 and the USB flash disk number is 1. Do not make a mistake. Start vbox and select the simulated hard disk to start it. Win7/Vista, must work under the administrator.

If you are interested, you can check the generated vmdk file:

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=ff985184
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description
RW 15722496 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive1" 0

# The disk Data Base 
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
ddb.adapterType="ide"
ddb.geometry.cylinders="15597"
ddb.geometry.heads="16"
ddb.geometry.sectors="63"
ddb.uuid.image="2f95f9b9-8bff-43cd-b30c-e8dbb5de42b5"
ddb.uuid.parent="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.modification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.uuid.parentmodification="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
ddb.geometry.biosCylinders="978"
ddb.geometry.biosHeads="255"
ddb.geometry.biosSectors="63"

[Via]