This raw partition support is quite similar to the full hard disk access described above. However, in this case, any partitioning information will be stored inside the VMDK image. This means that you can install a different boot loader in the virtual hard disk without affecting the host's partitioning information. While the guest will be able to see all partitions that exist on the physical disk, access will be filtered in that reading from partitions for which no access is allowed the partitions will only yield zeroes, and all writes to them are ignored.

To create a special image for raw partition support, which will contain a small amount of data, on a Linux host, use the command:

$ VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename path-to-file.vmdk --format=VMDK
--variant RawDisk --property RawDrive=/dev/sda --property Partitions=1,5

The command is identical to the one for full hard disk access, except for the additional --property Partitions=1,5 parameter. This example would create the image path-to-file.vmdk, which must be absolute, and partitions 1 and 5 of /dev/sda would be made accessible to the guest.

uses the same partition numbering as your Linux host. As a result, the numbers given in the above example would refer to the first primary partition and the first logical drive in the extended partition, respectively.

On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use for example \\.\PhysicalDrive0. On a macOS host, instead of the above device specification use /dev/rdisk1, for example. Note that on OS X you can only use partitions which are not mounted. Unmount the respective disk first using diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX . Partition numbers are the same on Linux, Windows, and macOS hosts.

The numbers for the list of partitions can be taken from the output of the following command:

$ VBoxManage list hostdrives

The output lists available drives and their partitions with the partition types and sizes to give the user enough information to identify the partitions necessary for the guest.

Images which give access to individual partitions are specific to a particular host disk setup. You cannot transfer these images to another host. Also, whenever the host partitioning changes, the image must be recreated.

Creating the image requires read/write access for the given device. Read/write access is also later needed when using the image from a virtual machine. If this is not feasible, there is a special variant for raw partition access, currently only available on Linux hosts, that avoids having to give the current user access to the entire disk. To set up such an image, use:

$ VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename path-to-file.vmdk --format=VMDK
--variant RawDisk --property RawDrive=/dev/sda --property Partitions=1,5
--property Relative=1

When used from a virtual machine, the image will then refer not to the entire disk, but only to the individual partitions. In this example, /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda5. As a consequence, read/write access is only required for the affected partitions, not for the entire disk. During creation however, read-only access to the entire disk is required to obtain the partitioning information.

In some configurations it may be necessary to change the MBR code of the created image. For example, to replace the Linux boot loader that is used on the host by another boot loader. This enables for example the guest to boot directly to Windows, while the host boots Linux from the "same" disk. For this purpose the --property-file BootSector=path-to-file-with-boot-sector parameter is provided. It specifies a file name from which to take the MBR code. The partition table is not modified at all, so a MBR file from a system with totally different partitioning can be used. An example of this is:

$ VBoxManage createmedium disk --filename path-to-file.vmdk --format=VMDK
--variant RawDisk --property RawDrive=/dev/sda --property Partitions=1,5
--property-file BootSector=winxp.mbr

The modified MBR will be stored inside the image, not on the host disk.

The created image can be attached to a storage controller in a VM configuration as usual.