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

[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]

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.

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]

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!