I'm a bit of a newbie, but I need to know if it's possible to safely connect an infected USB drive to a virtual machine instead of my main Windows system. I'm looking to use VirtualBox since it's the only free VM I could find. I want to ensure that the drive connects solely to the VM and not to my main PC when plugged in. Is there a way to set it up so that the drive doesn't automatically mount and instead goes straight to VirtualBox?
3 Answers
What exactly are you trying to do? If your goal is to retrieve data from the infected drive, you might want to boot from an Ubuntu live USB instead. It can help you access the drive without the risks associated with your main OS.
To connect the USB drive to your VM safely, you can use a feature called passthrough. This option allows the VM to access the USB port directly, limiting the main OS’s access to it. You’ll need to configure this in VirtualBox, linking the USB port to your VM and enabling passthrough. This way, you can keep the rest of your system isolated.
I get what you're saying. My aim is to safely connect the drive to a computer to scan for viruses and transfer files to a new drive. Using a live USB might feel safer than a VM, but manually moving files is a real hassle, and I'm uncertain about what Linux antivirus to use or what’s safe to copy.
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