BIOS support for booting from usb devices

[Dhamodharan.P]

Currently Boot Order has CD/DVD-ROM, Floppy, HDD, Network as options.

It would be nice if boot from USB is also available as an option.

Thanks.

[Nikita Krjukov]

I vote for the feature.

[Technologov]

Added myself as CC to this wish.

-Technologov

[Frank Mehnert]

Just a comment: Of course I see the advantage of booting from an USB device. But it will require a lot of additional code in the VirtualBox BIOS which we (at least currently) don't intend to implement.

[Technologov]

Found a duplicate: #5480

-Technologov

[rshendershot]

Replying to frank:

Just a comment: Of course I see the advantage of booting from an USB device. But it will require a lot of additional code in the VirtualBox BIOS which we (at least currently) don't intend to implement.

I wonder if the situation has changed. Aside from being a nice2have, it's also useful in testing a USB drive itself. I'm trying to boot from something created with unetbootin and I don't want to first test it on my 'real' machine and take risks. If I could verify that it boots in VirtualBox I can sandbox it. Is it still a significant effort?

[Mace2442]

Another one NEEDING this.

I'm a deployment specialist so i need to be able to test usb boot devices. I also need to test PXE boot so right now there are two blocking Bugs that makes Virtualbox unusable.

I also strongly objects about seeing this as a minor bug. IT's basic functionality that competing products have had for years. It's also a matter of quality that things that just should work doens't (PXE)

[Frank Mehnert]

PXE is supposed to work so if it doesn't for you then please open a ticket containing a detailed error description.

[counter24]

I wonder if booting from USB will be implemented in VirtualBox 5.0 which is currently in Beta and is still subject to changes and improvements

USB boot support in BIOS existed for many years as part of PC hardware, as old as USB 1.0 technology. on the contrary booting from Floppy Disk is no longer supported or implemented in PC hardware (it's supported in VirtualBox); It makes sense to first consider implementing this basic feature as well as implementing USB 3.0 support or other new technologies.

[Frank Mehnert]

BIOS support for USB is not just a simple checkbox item, it's far more effort than you might be imagine. This requires complete new code in the BIOS and there are size-restrictions. Everything is solvable but it still needs development resources.

Booting from USB is probably a nice feature but there are more important issues, for instance greatly improve the USB performance which will be done with USB 3 support. The performance of USB and the lack of USB 3 support which becomes essential if the host ships only USB 3 connectors is far more important that support for booting from USB devices.

[Michael Thayer]

Just to be clear here of course - while we simply do not have the free resources to implement this ourselves, we would be able to spare enough to integrate it if someone were to contribute it, as well as to give some guidance to someone competent enough in hardware and BIOS coding. The task is large enough that it is not likely to happen as a pure volunteer effort, but I could imagine it happening as a commission job (not from us of course, as already explained) if there were enough people interested and willing to fund it together. The code would of course have to be in a good enough state and well-tested enough that we could be confident of not having more maintenance work with it than we could provide.

[GegeApl]

I vote to this feature too. Regards

[spetreollle_]

I hope this will be implemented.

Major OSes can be installed this way.

[Frank Mehnert]

Booting from USB should be possible with VBox 5.1.x when using the EFI boot mechanism (enable EFI in the VM settings).

[Tronmech]

This is becoming more of an issue when you need to set up systems from USB boot images that refuse to start if you connect the image as a CD or floppy image. This seems a pretty popular request. I'm not a big x86 assembly language person, nor a big bios person, and I'm aware that a "simple" end user request is often a can of worms under the hood, but this is something that needs to happen.

[foo_]

Ditto this request also- the ability to book from a virtual USB device in BIOS (not UEFI).