Host Mint VirtualMachine?

[splagh]

I have a linux mint HDD from a computer i built for someone a few years ago. The motherboard has since crapped out and it is no longer in production or available for less than 160% the original price.
I believe there is a way to host virtual machines over the internet and i'm struggling to find ways in which they can access their HDD online while i go about the business of installing a different mobo and transferring their files to a new linux mint installation. (they live very far away)
Any tips?

 

[doolittle]

Sounds like the easiest way is to bring that drive online, archive their home directory with the archive tool of your choice (I use p7zip these days) then upload the file(s) to the cloud provider of your choice e.g. Google drive then share it with them.

 

[Alabalcho]

Another solution is to sign for a service which will let you host a virtual machine in the cloud(AWS, Azure), transfer your drive there, and connect to that VM in order to access your files.

 

[Rocky Bennett]

The cloud is one way, although you will have a lot of complications setting up the service.

 

[jr9]

Upload their files to a Software as a Service style cloud service such as OneDrive or Google Drive. If the volume is over 1TB in size, use Backblaze.

A full virtualization setup that could be accessed online would be very complicated to set up and not recommended unless you are experienced with enterprise virtualization solutions. This cannot be done in programs like VirtualBox to my knowledge, it is difficult enough just getting files between the host machine to the VM. The VM is completely isolated. Routing would be a particular challenge as VMs. It would be far easier to just set up an FTP server.