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USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 2. Dec 2009, 22:37
by A.Tim
Hi,

I am running Mint 7 Gloria as a host, with XP Pro as a guest using PRUEL 2.2.4 for Jaunty. Everything seems to be working well, except the fact that my USB peripherals are not enabled under the guest OS. I have a Genius MousePen tablet, and a Logitech QuickCam that I'd like to work under Windows. I also have an external HD that I'm not able to mount to the VM as well.

I've set filters for them and unplugged and reconnected them while using the VM, and they're still greyed out. Is there anything else I can try to do to get them to work?

Thanks,

Tim

[addendum]

I probably should mention that I got my MP3 player to mount to the VM perfectly. So it's not a problem with USB support in general. I just need to find a way to get VirtualBox to access the three aforementioned devices.

Re: USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 2. Dec 2009, 23:31
by Sasquatch
Please see the VirtualBox FAQ for some help.

Re: USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 3. Dec 2009, 04:15
by A.Tim
Your link had no solutions relevant to my problem. I did however find that my account was not part of the virtualbox group. I added my account to the group and restarted. That fixed my problem.

I think it should be made more clear in your documentation that you need to manually add your account to the group after you install VirtualBox. I was under the impression that the installation might do that automatically.

Re: USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 3. Dec 2009, 12:36
by Sasquatch
My link certainly had the information you needed. It clearly states you MUST be a member of the group before USB will work. If that doesn't solve it, the rest of it might be a solution. Just a matter of how you read it I guess.

Re: USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 31. Dec 2012, 11:23
by lothario
I have the same problem: USB storage devices (thumb drive and SDD connected via SATA->USB adapter) being grayed out and not available to the guest, even though the host can access them just find.

Host: Lubuntu 12.10 32-bit, guest: Linux AVG rescue CD image. VirtualBox 4.2.6 (latest as of today).

My user was already in the vboxusers group (otherwise VirtualBox would pop up a warning).

Re: USB Peripherals disabled - How do I enable them?

Posted: 31. Dec 2012, 15:10
by Perryg
Did you install the extension pack?