Systems and methods for achieving minimal rebooting during system update operations

A virtual machine (VM) is created using an alternate root disk (DRD) that has complete isolation between the booted system environment (BSE) running on the host operating system and the BSE running on the VM's operating system. The VM's root disk and BSE are separately bootable from the host system's root disk and BSE, thereby allowing for updates and modifications to the VM's root disk and BSE without interference with the host system's root disk and BSE regardless of how many times the updating BSE must be rebooted during the updating procedure. At most a single reboot is required in order to transfer the work in progress from the VM to the host system.