External HD ...

[lando]

...is not detected by usb ...What can I do ?
Many thanks.

[Perryg]

Not enough information to be able to help.
Forum Posting Guideline

• Please provide host OS.
• What are the VBox settings (USB) for the guest?

[lando]

Not enough information to be able to help.
Forum Posting Guideline

• Please provide host OS.
• What are the VBox settings (USB) for the guest?

Ubuntu 8.04.1 Host
Vista guest
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7968/vbox30.png

[Perryg]

I assume that your host can see the USB device so the following should be all you need to do:
USB Filters in Windows Guests are not needed. You can turn them on but remove the filters.
Then boot the windows guest and can click on the VBox device tab and then USB your device should show up there. Then just click the device.

[lando]

Then boot the windows guest and can click on the VBox device tab and then USB your device should show up there. Then just click the device.

I do not see "VBox device " .....
I clic "Computer" and see all the device attached...should be here ?



PS - Maybe the solution should be found >>>
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18423

If you cannot help I ' ll do a complete reinstall ...

[Perryg]

Once you boot the guest and it is running there should be 3 tabs at the top left of the window. Machine, Devices, and Help this is where the VBox controls are.
Just click on the device tab move your mouse down to USB and you should see your devices there.

[lando]

Once you boot the guest and it is running there should be 3 tabs at the top left of the window. Machine, Devices, and Help this is where the VBox controls are.
Just click on the device tab move your mouse down to USB and you should see your devices there.

OK , I 've seen ...clic on USB, then a menu with also mass storage comes out ...but it cannot be checked ...!!!!

[Perryg]

Alright then you can go a different way. Close the guest (shut down) Then open the settings for the guest and go to the USB section. Click on the blank filter (one with a blue dot). This will install a blank filter. Start the guest and then once it is up and running unplug the USB device and plug it back in. This should install it in the guest.
I am none to keen on this with external drives though but that is the only other way I know of to get it to work in Windows.

[lando]

Alright then you can go a different way. Close the guest (shut down) Then open the settings for the guest and go to the USB section. Click on the blank filter (one with a blue dot). This will install a blank filter. Start the guest and then once it is up and running unplug the USB device and plug it back in. This should install it in the guest.
I am none to keen on this with external drives though but that is the only other way I know of to get it to work in Windows.

Thanks a lot for your instructions,....but unfortunately still it doesn't work!

[Sasquatch]

Are you able to actually use USB in the Guests? When you can't select a USB device from the list because it's greyed out, you have to check your system settings if it actually supports passing USB to the VM. See the VirtualBox FAQ for some help.

[lando]

I 've installed http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads is this PUEL ?
In FAQ I 've found problems for VBOX < 2.2.0 and old Systems ( Ubuntu 8.04.1 is old ?)

The stuff below is for older system... Am I involved ?

USB not working

If USB is not working on your Linux host, make sure that the current user is a member of the vboxusers group. On older hosts, you need to make sure that the user has permission to access the USB filesystem (usbfs), which VirtualBox relies on to retrieve valid information about your host's USB devices. The rest of this section only applies to those older systems.

As usbfs is a virtual filesystem, a chmod on /proc/bus/usb has no effect. The permissions for usbfs can therefore only be changed by editing the /etc/fstab file.

For example, most Linux distributions have a user group called usb or similar, of which the current user must be a member. To give all users of that group access to usbfs, make sure the following line is present:

# 85 is the USB group
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=85,devmode=664 0 0

Replace 85 with the group ID that matches your system (search /etc/group for "usb" or similar). Alternatively, if you don't mind the security hole, give all users access to USB by changing "664" to "666".

The various distributions are very creative from which script the usbfs filesystem is mounted. Sometimes the command is hidden in unexpected places. For SuSE 10.0 the mount command is part of the udev configuration file /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules. As this distribution has no user group called usb, you may e.g. use the vboxusers group which was created by the VirtualBox installer. Since group numbers are allocated dynamically, the following example uses 85 as a placeholder. Modify the line containing (a linebreak has been inserted to improve readability)

DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb"

and add the necessary options (make sure that everything is in a single line):

DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb -o devgid=85,devmode=664"

Debian Etch has the mount command in /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh. Since that distribution has no group usb, it is also the easiest solution to allow all members of the group vboxusers to access the USB subsystem. Modify the line

domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev

so that it contains

domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=85,devmode=664

As usual, replace the 85 with the actual group number which should get access to USB devices.

Other distributions do similar operations in scripts stored in the /etc/init.d directory.