Use Virtual Machine Emulation to Run Linux from Windows and vice versa. Boot a USB from a Virtual Machine.
Can you boot VirtualBox from USB? Yes, Portable VirtualBox was an unofficial portable wrapper for Virtual Box (vbox), created by Micha. An improved version was later offered by Tibo, the author of the (LiLi) Live Linux USB Creator. Both can be used to make VirtualBox boot from USB without restarting the host computer.
How to Boot a USB flash drive in VirtualBox. In this segment you will learn how to successfully boot a portable operating system from a USB flash drive or removable external hard drive while still running from within a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X environment using vbox.
Convert a VDI or VHD Virtual Machine into a bootable USB drive. Directly boot from VHD or VDI files; Turning VirtualBox "VHD" (Virtual Hard Disk) Images or "VDI" (Virtual Disk) Images into a bootable physical disk. Copy VHD to Disk to make a USB Virtual Machine.
How to Easily Run ISO from Windows Without Rebooting: Running an ISO from Windows allows you to operate a separate operating system or bootable tool without restarting your computer. This guide covers how to use VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V, or QEMU to run a bootable ISO from a USB flash drive or local storage, all while continuing to work within an up and running Windows environment. This method is perfect for those who want to have both operating systems running simultaneously, eliminating the need to adjust BIOS or UEFI settings.
The following tutorial explains how we were able to Run Damn Small Linux in Windows using Qemu Emulation technology. Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a tiny Linux Operating System created by John Andrews that is based on a Knoppix 2.4 Kernel. The main advantage of DSL is that it runs well on older and slower computers and will fit on even a 64MB USB flash drive or other portable device.
Portable Ubuntu Remix for Windows (Pubuntu) is a project led by Claudio Cacsar Sánchez Tejeda, utilizing CoLinux (Cooperative Linux) to allow users to run a full Ubuntu Linux environment on top of Windows. CoLinux, a port of the Linux kernel, is an open-source virtual machine, which functions similarly to QEMU but is often praised for its superior performance.
