Do you want to add Physical Hard Disk into your virtual machine’s software, then this guide is perfect for you. Because will cover the step-by-step guide on How to Add Physical Hard Disk to VMware and VirtualBox on Windows?
I hope you know that a virtual machine is a software where you can install multiple operating systems such as macOS, Linux, Ubuntu, and even Windows. The operating system will be installed in the virtual disk image. You can have an advanced and smooth environment same as your actual operating system. If you have an assignment in another operating system then you can install it on the virtual machine and get your work done.
If you want to access your macOS or Linux physical hard disk within the virtual machine then you must connect the physical hard disk to the virtual machine. So, the process is a bit difficult to add a physical hard disk to a virtual machine but don’t worry we will walk you through the easiest and simple steps. However, VirtualBox and VMware are very two different virtual machines, and both of them are having different procedures to add a physical hard disk. But you should not have to worry because we will show you the boat method hey there you are adding a physical hard disk in VirtualBox or VMware
How to Add Physical Hard Disk to Virtual Machine
So, now we’ll try to explain how you can add a physical hard disk to VirtualBox and VMware. To do that, you have to go through each step down below to successfully add a physical hard disk to the virtual machine.
1. Make VirtualBox Access Real Hard Disk
you might know that VirtualBox has its own tool by the name of VBoxManage, with the help of this tool you can edit the hard drive inside your virtual machine. You can also use this tool in order to manage partitions in VirtualBox the same as you do it in your physical operating system.
So you need to open the command prompt (CMD), and you need to run the command prompt as administrator so that you should access or edit the real hard disk in a virtual machine. Open your start menu, type there command prompt and you will see run as administrator make sure to click that.

CMD
Now, enter commands to Add the Entire Physical Hard Disk. Write the following code as it is in your CMD. Write that line by line.
cd “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\” |
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\mydrive.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive1 |

Add Entire Physical Hard Disk
- Mydrive.vmdk is a virtual disk that is similar to Real Hard Disk.
- PhysicalDrive1 is hard disk number, you can find this number in Disk Manager window In order to open the disk manager tool, you have to open Windows search bar and type there Disk Manager, and you will see there ‘Create and format hard disk partition’.

disk
In order to add individual physical disk partitions then follow up following the codes down below. Make sure to write the codes one by one.
cd “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\” |
VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0 |
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\mydrive.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -partitions 0,7 |

Individual Physical Disk Partitions
Use VirtualBox to Access Physical Hard Disk
In order to find out these partitions, you need to run VirtualBox as administrator. To do it, you need to right-click on the VirtualBox walk and make sure to click on run as administrator.

Physical Disk to VirtualBox
Use VMware to Access Physical Hard Disk
On the VMware workstation, you can add the full physical hard disk and individual physical disk. To properly do it, you need to right-click on the VMware icon and select Run as Administrator.

VMware
Now, select the virtual machine and click on the edit virtual machine settings.

Edit Virtual Machine settings
Go to the Memory tab, and click on Add.

Memory
Select the hard disk option then click Next, on the next window select SATA and choose to Use a physical disk. This disk is only used by advanced users who want to use a local disk for their virtual machine.

Physical Disk on VMware
Conclusion
it was and step by step an easy tutorial to add a physical hard disk to VMWare and VirtualBox on Windows. I hope that this guide has helped you to add a physical hard disk to virtual machines and install an operating system without any difficulties. However, if you have encountered any problem or do you have any suggestion regarding this article then you can directly comment in the comments section down below.
No Responses