We’ve all had experiences with one VM or another (at least the readers of this site). But what of the occasions when we needed to map those virtual disks? If you are a Windows user, using MS VPC, you’d have had no trouble mapping disks (or if you use the *.vhd format as your preferred containment). But what if you use, say, VMware and there’s no compatibility with *.vmdk files in the DiskPart program (Windows’s disk management program). So what do you do, now that you’ve got no support for shared folders (say you use a far-off OS, Chromium or Android x86), or you just want to do some debugging? You’re stumped! But like most articles on our site, we’ll show you light!

We’ll show you the best methods you can use, whether you just wanna get an APK pushed into Android x86 or you wanna clear the Dalvik Cache, one of the methods (if not all) will work for you.

All the articles are meant for Windows with either VirtualBox or VMware Player/Workstation.

 

OSFMount

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This is an excellent piece of software with which you can mount all kinds of virtual disk formats. It can also mount ISO files and IMG files up to some extent. What’s also good is that you can create empty disks, either ISO or a virtual HDD. The only con of this software being, that you’ll need another software: Ext2Fsd to R/W ext* file formats (such as the ones in Android x86 or linux). Once a drive is mounted, you can interact with it like you would on a real device right in Explorer.

All the instructions are either in the program or on the relevant website.

|Ext2Fsd|

|OSFMount|

 

VMware DiskMap

There is, in fact a disk mapping tool in VMware itself. It can only map *.vmdk files and you’ll find that it’s quite buggy (e.g. taking long time to map, partition corrupt after remapping etc.). You’ll love it if you just wanna map a Windows or a similar non-exotic OS’s virtual disk! The worst thing is, it’s only available for VMware Workstation. L

To use it, go to settings of the relevant VM [Hard Disk > Utilities > Map Disk] OR [File > Map Virtual Disk.]

You’ll still need Ext2Fsd from above link to map ext* (ext4, ext2 etc.) disks.

 

Linux Distro Merging

Technically the title is not suited.

What I’m recommending is totally fool-proof and will work 100% of the time. But first try the upper two methods. But this method is a little time consuming.

You will need a Linux distribution for this as Linux can parse many file formats natively. Secondly you’ll need to install the Linux distro as a VM. Then mount the VHDD you need to map to the VMd Linux. Do what you want to do (i.e. copy necessary files from a prepared USB or change the files) then un-mount the USB and the VHDD from the VM (removing the VHDD from the in Settings is not needed). Then boot up your other OS. You should have the files you put in there earlier.

If that was confusing read this PDF for a step by step guide where I side load an APK into an Android x86 build. I use Kali Linux there.

|GuideMerge|

 

Microsoft DiskPart

This is great if you just wanna map a *.vhd file, as it only supports such files. Actually it’s built-in to Windows. It maps the VHD without any hastle and you can even create new ones.

To use, right click [Computer (in Start menu) > Manage > on the middle panel, double click Storage > double click Disk Management > right click Disk Management (in the left panel) > Create/Attach VHD]. And you’re done. You shouldn’t get any errors that way.

PS you’ll still need Ext2Fsd to read “ext3/4/2” disks.

 

7Zip Files Manager

This is the easiest method, just install 7Zip file manager, right click on your virtual harddisk, then hover on 7Zip and select “Open Archive”.

It’s read-only, so you might have some trouble or it might not be your purpose.

|7Zip for Windows|