virtualbox.org

Guest - ubunto - 09.4 and XP Pro SP3 as host

I have spent several hours trolling through the forums. I have followed various instructions on creating shares, making shares available and I am stuck on the protocol error:
mark@ubuntu-vm:~$ sudo mount -t vboxsf Mmusic ~/Mmusic
[sudo] password for mark:
/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: Protocol error

The windows share exists in my windows home directory in the My Music folder and it is named MMusic (c:\documents and settings\mark\my music\Myles music) mapped using virtual box as MMusic.

I feel if Virtual Box is to take off, newbies like myself need a step by step idiots guide to actions such as making windows files available. The answers in a similar topic were incomplete and don't really explain the protool error very well:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15868

Troubleshooting
Q: I get a protocol error when mounting.
Q: I get the error /sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device.
A: You mount the SF on a mount point with the same name as the share itself, change the name or mount point.
A: You're sharing a personal folder like your Home Folder (Linux), or My Documents (Windows) on the Host. Define a new share, like a sub folder.

Alrighty then,

In the VBox program under settings and then Shared Folders, Click the plus to add a new share.
Drill to the share by clicking the down arrow on the right of Folder Path and search to the folder in the host that you want to use and click it.
Now give it a simple name (let's used Shared) and put it in the Folder Name. (do not click read only if you want to use this on the other system) click OK.
Now start the Guest (in your case Ubuntu), and open a terminal window.
(type the following) sudo -i (press enter) and then your password (press enter)
then type: mkdir /home/<your login name>/Shared (notice the cap S it is case sensitive) and press enter.
Then type mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 Shared /home/<your login name>/Shared (Press enter)

You should now have a shared folder to use between you host and guest.

Oh and just so you know the only thing that I did in VBox was use a drill down menu to select the shared folder. All the rest is Linux based instructions.

Oh and to make this permanent you will need to edit your fstab or your rc.local and make the entry. Another Linux thing.

Perryg - you are a marvel

Ishall now go off and start to learn Unix commands and how to edit fstab. I worked out how to find fstab and now to understaand more about switching to root and editing files.

ThNK YOU

thanks!! this was very helpful!