Mounting SATA drive from Host to Guest system

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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gabrielwong1991
Posts: 2
Joined: 15. Sep 2021, 16:30

Mounting SATA drive from Host to Guest system

Post by gabrielwong1991 »

Hi, I was wondering how to directly disconnect a SATA drive from Host and mount to the Guest system?

It is straightforward to do with a USB dongle and a click in Virtualbox gui but not sure about this one.


Basically, the reason is, I have a program in Guest where it continuously looks for a file in a drive, and seems that using the shared folder in VirtualBox does not seems to refresh the drive content as often? Hence the file never be found?
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Mounting SATA drive from Host to Guest system

Post by scottgus1 »

gabrielwong1991 wrote:the shared folder in VirtualBox does not seems to refresh the drive content as often? Hence the file never be found?
The better solution to this issue is to solve the above problem.
gabrielwong1991 wrote:directly disconnect a SATA drive from Host and mount to the Guest system?
This is Raw Disk Access, covered in the manual, Chapter 9. It is an experts-only feature and we don't offer advice on how to use it, since much data damage can happen if the process is pebcak'd.
gabrielwong1991 wrote:straightforward to do with a USB dongle
One could theoretically pass a drive attached to a USB adapter to the VM like one does a USB thumbdrive.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to use a real shared folder made by the host OS and passed over a Bridged or Host-Only network, instead of using Virtualbox Shared Folders.

Though VSFs are supposed to be a "shared folder" they often only work for manual or command-line file copying to and from the host to the VM. No opening, saving, running, permissioning, databasing, etc.

Use a real shared folder from the host OS.
gabrielwong1991
Posts: 2
Joined: 15. Sep 2021, 16:30

Re: Mounting SATA drive from Host to Guest system

Post by gabrielwong1991 »

Hi Scott, turns out my solution is to get a SATA to usb adapter and mount it to guest that way. Thanks!
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Mounting SATA drive from Host to Guest system

Post by scottgus1 »

Sounds good. If you have trouble, see USB basics and troubleshooting
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