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USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 10. Sep 2009, 06:41
by spaaarky21
After upgrading from VirtualBox 2.x to 3.0.4, most of my USB storage devices (external HDD's, flash drives) no longer work in my Windows XP guest. Windows says the devices have malfunctioned. The problem never happened prior to upgrading VirtualBox and OS X is able to recognize and mount them. The host is a MacBook (Core 1 Duo) running OS 10.4.11. Any ideas?

Brandon

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 10. Sep 2009, 23:06
by Uzume
spaaarky21 wrote:The guest is a MacBook (Core 1 Duo) running OS 10.4.11.
I am going to assume you meant "The host is a MacBook..." and not guest as VirtualBox does not currently support Mac OS X as a guest and you already were talking about Windows XP as a guest.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 11. Sep 2009, 01:55
by spaaarky21
Uzume wrote:
spaaarky21 wrote:The guest is a MacBook (Core 1 Duo) running OS 10.4.11.
I am going to assume you meant "The host is a MacBook..." and not guest as VirtualBox does not currently support Mac OS X as a guest and you already were talking about Windows XP as a guest.
Yes, the Mac is the host. My mistake. Has anyone else had problems with USB drives in a Windows XP guest on a Mac host?

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 11. Sep 2009, 20:36
by Joewoof
I am having a similar problem with a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard host running a Windows 7 RC guest. This is not a Windows-guest problem either, as my Linux Mint 7 Gloria guest also encounters the same issue.

This problem occurs in both VirtualBox 3.0.4 and 3.0.6. Again, *none* of my USB devices can be mounted.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 12. Sep 2009, 03:01
by spaaarky21
Joewoof wrote:I am having a similar problem with a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard host running a Windows 7 RC guest. This is not a Windows-guest problem either, as my Linux Mint 7 Gloria guest also encounters the same issue.

This problem occurs in both VirtualBox 3.0.4 and 3.0.6. Again, *none* of my USB devices can be mounted.
Oddly enough, I was actually able to get one of my external drives to mount once since upgrading to VBox 3.0 but it was completely random. It "just worked" one day and has yet to work again since then. I'm thinking about going back to VirtualBox 2.x.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 12. Sep 2009, 20:51
by rpmurray
There's a kext in the /System/Library/Extensions folder that can interfere with the loading of USB storage devices on the guest side, called IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext. Try moving it to the desktop and see if that allows you to mount them on the guest side. If the USB devices start to work then it'll point to a bug in VB.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 12. Sep 2009, 23:12
by spaaarky21
I tried with and without that kernel extension (removed, rebooted, tried mounting a USB drive in VBox) but it didn't work either way. I would still think that it's a VBox bug since the problem only occurred after upgrading from 2.x to 3.0.x.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 13. Sep 2009, 10:16
by ttrtilley
I could mount a 4 GB USB flash stick, but not a 1GB USB hard drive partitioned DOS and formatted FAT.
The hard drive appears in the menu, but is greyed out, even though it was ejected on OS X.
This is running VBox 3.0.6 on Snow Leopard with WIN 7 rc1 64bit guest.

Moving IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext and rebooting OS X removes the grayed out problem.
It tries to mount the drive, but never finishes.
I know it has done something, because if I try to mount it a second time, it tells me that it is "busy with a previous request"

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 13. Sep 2009, 18:37
by ttrtilley
What VB has done is capture the drive. This is good.
Unfortunately, Windows doesn't mount it.

It I quit Windows and create a USB filter for the drive in VB, then I can move IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext back where it came from.
VB grabs the drive before OS X does.
Windows, however, still doesn't mount the thing.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 15. Sep 2009, 04:01
by spaaarky21
Well, it sounds like at least a few people have had this problem since upgrading to 3.0.x. Is that enough to put in a bug report?

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 18. Sep 2009, 02:28
by fudgefactor
I have the same problem with VBox 3.0.6. I have a Mid 2009 Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard 10.6.1 installed. I am running a 64-bit kernel. The guest OS is WinXP. I am able to capture the USB drive within the guest os, but after a few minutes, Windows complains that it is an unknown device. This also happens when I try to attach the Mac's iSight, so it is not specific to the USB drive. I have been having this problem since I moved to VBox 3.0, including when I was running 32-bit Leopard.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 19. Sep 2009, 19:55
by cameron
I've got the same issue. I'm running VBox 3.0.6 with Mac OS X Leopard as the Host and WinXP Pro as the guest. I can't get any of my USB drives to show up in XP at all. Just thought I'd chime in.

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 22. Sep 2009, 08:25
by spaaarky21
I was playing around with this again and when I disabled USB 2.0 support for the VM, Windows was able to recognize a flash drive as a USB mass storage device... but then it failed to install the driver. I guess that's progress?

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 22. Sep 2009, 14:14
by Adlopa
Another "me too" for this. However..

I've been using VirtualBox 2.2.4 until now and I've never been able to get USB drives to work under any version of Windows, either with USB 1 or 2. This is with a SnowLeopard / Core 2 Duo host. This hasn't been an issue until today, when I *really* need to do it.

I only discovered VirtualBox 3.0 today after reading this thread — VirtualBox didn't detect an available upgrade. Even so, USB drives still don't work...

Re: USB drive problems after upgrading to VBox 3.0.4

Posted: 26. Sep 2009, 09:11
by spaaarky21
Adlopa wrote:Another "me too" for this. However...

I've been using VirtualBox 2.2.4 until now and I've never been able to get USB drives to work under any version of Windows, either with USB 1 or 2. This is with a SnowLeopard / Core 2 Duo host. This hasn't been an issue until today, when I *really* need to do it.
If 2.2.4 didn't work either, are you sure you have it configured right? In the USB configuration, you will need to setup a "filter" for the devices you want to use. Or create a new filter and leave everything blank to expose everything you plug in to the guest.