Snow Leopard guest in Catalina host – failing to access USB HD

Discussions about using Mac OS X guests (on Apple hardware) in VirtualBox.
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acellier
Posts: 12
Joined: 12. Jun 2007, 08:12

Snow Leopard guest in Catalina host – failing to access USB HD

Post by acellier »

We have been happily running Snow Leopard in various MacOS up through Mojave.
We have just switched to Catalina, and coincidentally updated to VB v6.1.38.
Now our Snow Leopard VM fails to access content on USB external volumes connected to the host (2012 Mac Mini) ... EXCEPT those few which had an existing alias on the desktop of the Snow Leopard VM.
Tried playing with Sharing on the host, but that resulted in the host shedding the externals when VM tried to start. Not good.
Any suggestions?
scottgus1
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Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Snow Leopard guest in Catalina host – failing to access USB HD

Post by scottgus1 »

There may be a bug with using USB attached devices when the VM boots. Try disconnecting the devices before starting the VM, then connecting them after the VM OS has logged in.
acellier wrote:Tried playing with Sharing on the host, but that resulted in the host shedding the externals when VM tried to start.
If 'shedding' means that the host no longer saw the external drives, this is expected if the VM's USB filters still had ownership of the drives. USB devices cannot be shared between two OS's at the same time. You can have the drive in the host and share folders to the VM, or insert the drive into the VM using USB, but not both at once.
acellier
Posts: 12
Joined: 12. Jun 2007, 08:12

Re: Snow Leopard guest in Catalina host – failing to access USB HD

Post by acellier »

Thanks for the reply.
It appears that I am unable to set File Sharing (AFP) ON in the Catalina OS on the 2012 Mini.
Will continue struggling.

Aha – may have found the answer here –
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253970425

YES that did it!
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