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Sun Microsystems VIRTUALBOX VERSION 3.1.0_BETA2 User Manual

Page 19

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1 First steps

There are many and potentially complicated ways in which VirtualBox can pro-
vide hard disk space to a VM (see chapter

5

,

Virtual storage

, page

76

for details),

but the most common way is to use a large image file on your “real” hard disk,
whose contents VirtualBox presents to your VM as if it were a complete hard
disk.

The wizard shows you the following window:

The wizard allows you to create an image file or use an existing one. Note also
that the disk images can be separated from a particular VM, so even if you delete
a VM, you can keep the image, or copy it to another host and create a new VM
for it there.

In the wizard, you have the following options:

• If you have previously created any virtual hard disks which have not been

attached to other virtual machines, you can select those from the drop-
down list in the wizard window.

• Otherwise, to create a new virtual hard disk, press the “New” button.

• Finally, for more complicated operations with virtual disks, the “Existing...“

button will bring up the Virtual Disk Manager, which is described in more
detail in chapter

5.3

,

The Virtual Media Manager

, page

80

.

Most probably, if you are using VirtualBox for the first time, you will want to
create a new disk image. Hence, press the “New” button.

This brings up another window, the “Create New Virtual Disk Wizard”.

VirtualBox supports two types of image files:

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