[vbox-dev] Booting a physical machine using a virtual image

[Alexey Eromenko]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 8:56 PM, Swapnesh Chaubal <schauba at clemson.edu> wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> I am working on a master's project in which I would like to boot physical
> machines using V-Box images stored on a server. Also, the changes done to
> the operating system thus booted, should be automatically saved in the
> image. I believe some driver would have to be written on the virtual image
> for the boot loader to understand and treat it as a physical disk and not a
> virtual disk. I'm not sure whether I would need to change in v-box code for
> it.
>
> Any pointers on this would be highly appreciated.

Such (proprietary) technology exists.
One from Microsoft (part of Windows 7 Ultimate) and other from VMlite
(called VBoot, freeware).
Although they work with *.vhd images, but those compatible with VirtualBox.

VMlite has a nice user community forum, so you can ask questions about
VBoot there.

-- 
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"