Convert Raw disk Image file into Virtual Box `.vdi`

10 Jul 2018, 12:00am TZ +00:00

Working with DietPi, we found going back and forth between the Raspberry Pi and PC very time consuming. Fortunately DietPi provides a PC distribution with x86_x64 configuration. Though they had both VM Ware and Virtual Box files but they did not work for us. So we decided to download the Native PC for BIOS/CSM (BETA) option.

We later found out this is just a .img file, we could not directly use it with Virtual Box

With virtual box one gets a handy command VBoxManage, we seek to use that. This same command is used by famous docker to create the older windows runtime VM.

convertfromraw #

We would be converting the RAW image file DietPi_v6.2_NativePC-BIOS-x86_64-Stretch.img to a .vdi file.

Also a bonus is that the convertfromraw command directly converts to VDI format by default. Though it also supports VMDK and VHD formats also.

In Windows: #

In a terminal window remap the Path using the following:

PATH=%PATH%;"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"

This would allow the use of the VBoxManage tool any where.

In our case in the directory where the RAW image is available.

Now to Convert the Image we feed the following command

J:\ > VBoxManage convertfromraw DietPi_v6.2_NativePC-BIOS-x86_64-Stretch.img dietpi_disk.vdi

Converting from raw image file="DietPi_v6.2_NativePC-BIOS-x86_64-Stretch.img" to file="dietpi_disk.vdi"...
Creating dynamic image with size 839909376 bytes (801MB)...

We are done with the conversion.

In Linux: #

Depending on the type of your linux installation and distro the VirtualBox can be located in the /usr/share/virtualbox Sometimes its tools are directly mapped or one need to map them.

In case you need to map them to the current terminal path then use the following:

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export PATH=$PATH:/usr/share/virtualbox

Note: You might need to change the virtual box path as per your distro / installation.

Rest of the procedure is the same

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$ VBoxManage convertfromraw DietPi_v6.2_NativePC-BIOS-x86_64-Stretch.img dietpi_disk.vdi

Notice the Size 800MB only ! #

Next we need to fix this.

Extending the Size of an Virtual Box .vdi file #

As we saw earlier we are getting only 800MB disk file. That would hardly be enough even for the lean distribution like DietPi.

We need to increase the Size of this .vdi file.

modifymedium #

Note : In order to execute this command either in Windows or on Linux make sure to follow the pervious path configuration step.

The default type is disk or hdd for this command.

We would use the --resize option of the modifymedium command. The --resize option takes the storage space in megabytes.

Hence if we want to increase the size to lets say 8GB then we use the command with --resize 8192

Well Ideally we could use 8000MB for 8GB but in order to make the sector alignment correct we use a 2^n value.

Here is the full command and its output:

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$ VBoxManage modifymedium dietpi_disk.vdi --resize 8192

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Now the though the dietpi_disk.vdi file not increase in size but its made as Sparse VM disk. Hence, as there is demand for space then it would increase size accordingly.