


TroubleshootingĪs I was going through this process, I hit a few snags. If you get tired of this set up (it’s a little slower…), you can always pop it back into your laptop.
#VIRTUALBOX FOR MAC TO RUN WINDOWS WINDOWS 10#
Now you can access your old Windows 10 installation without having an entire other computer. If all goes well, you should see your Windows 10 desktop on your VM, just like you had booted the original machine. Cross your fingers and start your virtual machine… vmdk file you just created in Terminal.Īfter that’s done, you should be all set. Click the add button at the bottom and choose Hard Disk. Under the hard disk options, choose “Do not add a virtual hard disk.”Īfter your machine is created, open up the Settings for the VM and choose Storage. Now that you’ve launched VirtualBox as an admin, create a new virtual machine. To do that, type: sudo /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VirtualBoxĬreate a Windows 10 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox Now, before you leave Terminal, launch VirtualBox with admin privileges. You ought to get a message saying “Raw host disk access VMDK file created successfully.” Type: sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "/Users/Jack/Desktop/Win10Laptop.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk3Īnd, of course, replace the “/dev/disk3” with whatever your hard drive is and “/Users/Jack” with whatever your username is. You should recognize it by its type, size, and any indications that it has Windows_NTFS on it. Look through the list for your hard drive. Enter the following command: diskutil list

Press Command + Space and then type Disk Utility if you’re having trouble finding it.įind your hard drive and right-click it. Start by finding the mount point of your hard drive. Now, you want to take your physical hard drive and have VirtualBox treat it like a virtual machine disk. Once you get your hard drive physically connected to your Mac, go grab yourself a copy of VirtualBox. You can get a docking station one like me or a USB hard drive enclosure for less than $20. Mine is pretty basic, it is just an adapter that slides into a stand and it takes 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hard drives. What’s a USB hard drive dock? It’s a simple adapter that lets you connect a SATA hard drive to another computer using USB. USB Hard Drive Dock or Hard Drive Enclosure Once I got that off, I plugged it into my USB hard drive dock. My hard drive (technically, it’s a solid state drive, as you can see) slid right out. The exact steps will vary for you, but for me, it was as simple as flipping it over and unscrewing one panel. This will either be the easy part or the hard part, depending on what kind of laptop you have and your comfort level with tiny screwdrivers. Make sure you back up any critical data before proceeding with this project!) Remove Your Laptop Hard Drive

Click the wrong button, remove it from a computer unsafely, or spill coffee on it–things can happen. (A quick note of caution: Although the process is easy, there is always a risk when you remove a hard drive and mount it elsewhere. What I wanted to do was plug my hard drive into my Mac, fire it up, and have it be like I’m sitting in front of my old laptop, but you know, not have to keep my old laptop around. In an effort to reduce the amount of physical stuff I have, I had a thought: what If I could just take my Windows 10 laptop, remove the hard drive, and boot it on my Mac Mini? I’m not talking about installing Windows 10 on a Mac Using Boot Camp or installing a fresh Windows 10 VM on a Mac.
