As an alternative to the default android virtual machines that come with the Android SDK and/or Eclipse, try the images from the site below:

http://androvm.org/blog/

The format is ova, which is easily opened by virtualbox, and there only two simple things to keep in mind.

1) After adding into virtualbox, add a port forwarding rule to the first ethernet device. Even though this defaults to “not attached” I changed this to NAT and added rules for 5555, 8600 and 8601.

Make sure you do not turn off the second ethernet device as this virtual machine is configured to use both of these adapters.

From Eclipse you can change your settings (window->properties->android) to always prompt you to select a device. Run your virtual machine and go into settings and enable developer mode, then run your app in Eclipse and you should see the device in the top box of the devices window that appears.

If for any reason you can no longer see the device, go into the DDMS perspective and click on the restart adb button and you should now see it again.

That’s it! Fast, simple and better IMO than the out of the box config that comes with Eclipse for android development. Enjoy.