Q: Virtual Machine Configuration that Can be Up and Running Instantly How to create a virtual machine with a pre-installed OS and applications up and running instantly in any PC?  
I'm using shared PCs in the library which have special hardware that will regenerate the harddisk image after a reboot.  Although I can use their hard disk freely but any applications installed will be lost after reboot.  I want to be able to run my applications instantly without having to reinstall everything after every reboot.  Furthermore, I need to be able to install those applications that require reboot during their installation process.
My idea is to use a Virtual machine.  Installing a Virtual machine is the only overhead I need to bear with which is acceptable provided that the virtual machine installation doesn't require reboot by itself.  VirtualBox is a good candidate.  But the problem is that I have quite a large volume of preinstalled applications which cannot be fitted into a single DVD/USB drive.  The PCs have 1 DVD drive and 2 USB ports, so I can combine them for my need.  But, that would means my virtual disk image file must be split into 3 physical files (1 in DVD, 2 in 2 USB drives) in order to be up and running INSTANTLY (ok I can zip a large file into multiple DVDs but that requires a lengthy unzip process).
Questions: 


*

*How to make VirtualBox (or any other
virtual machines) to split the disk
image file (.VDI) into multiple
files that can be used instantly. Is
it via snapshot?

*Apart from virtualbox is there
anyother virtual machine that does
not require reboot during its
installation process?


A: Why don't you get an external hard drive? You can get a 1 terabyte drive for $100-$150. It would connect using USB and allow you to have a massive .VDI file.
This doesn't answer your questions, but it may answer your problem.
