using Virtual box VDI as usb stick

Question

I have ubuntu installed on a virtual box , I installed a software named XYZ on it, Now I want to make this VDI file burn on a USB so I can install it on any PC, is this possible? my main goal is that I want to get the same environemnt on another PC, may be some kind of IMAGE of current window that I can replicate on other system

Please assit

Solution

Yes you can (seen that before?).

You will need first to convert the vdi file into a raw format,

 VBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw Ubuntu.vdi Ubuntu.raw

which is the image of a whole drive; then you will need to dd this to the USB stick, for instance in *Nix this would be:

 dd if=/path/to/rawfile/Ubuntu.raw of=/dev/sdb

asssuming the USB stick is /dev/sdb (remember, if you misidentify it, you will wipe out the whole content of device /dev/sdb, so make sure there are no mistakes). There is also a dd version for Windows, see its sourceforge page.

Comments

[MariusMatutiae]

@SmartMindx Yes if you have installed it in your Ubuntu virtual machine. The process above gives you an exact copy of your system.

[PHPLove]

where I will write the dd command, on terminal? and how to find the /dev/sdb of usb? using mount?

[MariusMatutiae]

@SmartMindx You find the dev name by issuing the command fdisk -l; all commands are to be wrtten at the prompt in the terminal. Most commands will have to preceded by 'sudo' whcih grants you adminsitrative power to execute special commands like dd.

[PHPLove]

VboxManage comman will be given in windows cmd, shall dd be used in windows as well?

[PHPLove]

is there any way to make it bootable from USB?

[MariusMatutiae]

@SmartMindx dd is not a native Windows command, but there are several free implementations available, just google windows dd.

[PHPLove]

@MaiusMatuatiae, i will try that as we ll now

[PHPLove]

@MaiusMatuatiae after the dd command, the usb wasn't bootable, nor I was able to see any file in it, though it said on completion that 13Gb copied

[MariusMatutiae]

@SmartMindx You may try a different instrument, instead of dd: download (it is free) unetbootin, and use that to copy your VM image onto the usb stick.

[PHPLove]

other tools actually accepts img or iso file ,the one we are creating is raw file