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I'm dualbooting Windows and Linux, both on different drives, but both boot managers are on the same drive (the Linux one).

I'd like to run my existing Windows installation through Virtualbox in Linux, and I'm doing it with this guide: https://superuser.com/a/756731/954036

So I created a vdmk image of /dev/sda, and I added that image to the VirtualBox VM. Once I booted the VM I was greeted by the following error:

FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted.

I believe it's saying this because the actual bootmanager for Windows is on a different drive, here's the output of fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 119.25 GiB, 128035676160 bytes, 250069680 sectors
Disk model: SAMSUNG MZVLW128HEGR-000L2              
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 4FE65E84-A0C4-4173-AD7F-CE3C128F56B4

Device             Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048 234883071 234881024  112G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p2 234883072 247875583  12992512  6.2G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3 247875584 250069646   2194063    1G EFI System


Disk /dev/sda: 465.78 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 850 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 369746B4-CA1B-47E1-84C8-237D4200861E

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048 634562559 634560512 302.6G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda2  634562560 976773119 342210560 163.2G Microsoft basic data

The boot files for Windows 10's boot manager are on the EFI System Partition (/dev/nvme0n1p3), together with the boot manager for my Linux partition (rEFInd).

How do I let VirtualBox know where to find Windows' boot manager?

1 Answer 1

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I fixed it by also adding the drive that has the Windows boot manager on it (/dev/nvme0n1), and then enabling EFI in the VM's settings.

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