Can't connect to any USB devices

[apple01]

I’m brand new to VM software and these forums. I hope, I’m posting in the correct forum, if I’m not please let me know. I’ve searched for an answer to my question using USB as a keyword, but came up with no hits.

I’m running Windows XP Pro as my host operating system. I’ve installed Sun’s VirtualBox 3.0 VM software and have installed Vista as a guest operating system. Everything works fine, except that I can’t gain access to any USB devices. I’ve spent the better part of a day looking on the Internet for solutions, to no avail.

I’ve installed the Guest Additions, as indicated on some of the Web site. In the Settings box of the VirtualBox main menu, I’ve enabled USB and extended USB support. I’ve tried using filters and not using filters on the USB controller screen.
When I start up Vista inside of VB, I go to the Devices menu and click on USB devices. I see most of my USB devices sitting there, in a “busy” status. I’m assuming this means that the host OS has control of them. And, in fact, it does. When I use Windows Explorer on my host system, all of my USB devices are available.

As soon as I click on one of the devices on the Devices menu of the guest OS, the status changes from “busy” to “captured,” and they disappear from Windows Explorer on the host OS. However, I’m not able to access the devices. Windows Explorer on the guest OS does not show them, even though they’ve been “captured.”

My host OS is at current maintenance, as is VirtualBox. Any suggestions would be welcomed.
Thanks,
Ken

[Sasquatch]

You can try to use an empty filter, then after the VM is fully booted, plug in the USB device. It should be grabbed automatically by VB. You have to keep in mind that on Windows, you need a driver for each USB device you pass through to the VM. So if you captured a device, the new hardware wizard might be in the background and the device won't be fully captured until it's finished installing the pass through driver.

[apple01]

>> You can try to use an empty filter, then after the VM is fully booted, plug in the USB device. It should be grabbed automatically by VB. You have to keep in mind that on Windows, you need a driver for each USB device you pass through to the VM. So if you captured a device, the new hardware wizard might be in the background and the device won't be fully captured until it's finished installing the pass through driver.<<

On one occasion I remember the driver install message showing up. Because this is a "virtual" machine, should I expect to see that message every time I boot the virtual machine? I wouldn't think so. This is very strange. I get the feeling I'm doing something wrong, but for the life of me I can't imagine what. Like I posted originally. When I click on "Devices" and then click on the USB device I'm looking for, the status changes from "busy" to "captured" and the host system no longer knows about the device. Is there anything else I need to do on the guest system, other than what I've just indicated?

Thanks,
Ken

[Sasquatch]

Well, you have to make sure that the Guest has the USB drivers installed. You can't use USB, if the Guest doesn't have the controller installed. Same way you can't install XP on a pure SATA drive, because the controller can't be probed due to missing driver.
After it's captured, the Guest should have it, but that sometimes fails especially if the Host was actually using it. That's also one of the reasons I disable autorun on all media, because Windows could hold the USB drive because it opened Explorer for browsing it.
Are you sure the empty filter didn't work?

[apple01]

>> Are you sure the empty filter didn't work? <<

Boy, I'm as sure as I can be. After I click on Devices and the USB device I want to capture, I hear a little beep from my computer and Windows Explorer on the host machine no longer recognizes the device. Let me ask are really silly question. I'm assuming that when I open Windows Explorer on the guest machine (Vista in my case) that I should not have to do anything else; that is, the device should just appear there. Am I correct on this?

Next, I think the USB drivers have been installed on the host machine (Windows XP Pro), but I don't know how to verify that, can you help me out here? Also, I don't know how to disable autorun on a usb flash drive?

Thanks for your time and help.
~Ken

[Sasquatch]

Disabling autorun can be found with Google or any other search engine. This is usually a full change, so every drive gets it disabled.

As for the USB driver, that's fairly easy. Once the device is captured by VB, open the Host device manager. At the bottom you see the USB controller of the Host. Expand it and you should see which devices are attached. One of them should be VirtualBox USB Host Driver or something like that.

As for the use of the empty filter, remove the USB device from the machine, boot the VM and after it's fully loaded, THEN plug it in. The device should not be on the host, but send directly to the Guest. No need to attach it manually through the devices menu or USB icon in the status bar.

[ajarmoniuk]

You simply need to add your user to the vboxusers group.

Here's how to do that:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-F ... 1715.shtml

[Perryg]

You simply need to add your user to the vboxusers group.

Here's how to do that:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-F ... 1715.shtml

And just how would these people in this topic do that? They are all running Windows hosts.

[pcr]

I have two different Vista Host machines. The machine that is older and does not have the current updates aplied automatically recognized my Apple iPod touch without installing itunes. I can capture the iPod and sync it on a guest XP. The machine that is current on MS updates did not recogize the Apple iPod until itunes was installed (and removed) and its guest XP will capture the device but not give it a check. Thus, I cannot sync the iPod on the up to date Vista machine. I am also having USB issues with a brand new Windows 7 host and guest XP.

[Zambor]

I'm using Virtualbox 4.3.6 and having the same issue since forever. My host is Windows 7 SP1 32 bit, same for guest. I have Add-Ons installed and guest has Guest additions installed.
I plug in USB device (e.g. flash drive) only after guest is fully booted. It is visible in the host but not gets auto grabbed bu guest. If i try to manually attach it to the guest, the USB drive blinks and it's status changes from busy to captured, but nothing else happens. It is still visible in the host but not in the guest. If i try to attach it to the guest a second time i get an error that device is busy with previous request.
I have tried plugging the device to all 4 USB ports on my machine, tried rebooting both host and guest, tried adding an empty filter in USB properties of the guest. Nothing helps.
Boy, one would think that the devs could find some time to fix this issue since 2009 instead of dragging from one release to another

[Beast]

Is anyone aware if this has been fixed or a solution found for those of us running a windows host? My PNY USB 3.0 will definitely connect to my Windows 8.1 pro machine and will disconnect when I selected it from the devices menu but not show up in my Ubuntu 14.04 virtual environment. I have tried the above, wait till I turn on the Guest OS to connect my drive, nothing. I don't think I even need to enable a virtual box user group on my Host, even though it's Pro I don't think that option is really available. I agree with Zambor, especially if this has been an issue for 5, almost 6 years... it seems pretty important, am I right?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Beast