my Mac grabs my USB device and won't let go

[oetimmy]

I am Mac OS X 10.6.5 on a Mac Book Pro with 2 USB ports.

I have Virtualbox 3.2.12 r68302

I have XP Prof 2002 sp3

I have configured one simple virtual machine to upgrade a satnav! I wish to kill the satnav vendor, but that is beside the point.

Satnav plugs into the USB port. Finder grabs the thing and mounts it as 'Untitled' and it is greyed out in Virtualbox as WCE yadda yadda (it is a windows CE operating system device)

Greyed out device - WCE.....

Screen shot 2010-12-21 at 15.07.23.png (36.03 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

If I manage to use the USB icon in Virtualbox to grab the item before it goes grey I get this:

If I grab it before OS X gets it I get this

Screen shot 2010-12-21 at 15.04.37.png (66.37 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

If I eject it in Finder it vanishes from Finder. That's good, I imagine. But it stays greyed out in Virtualbox.

Now I am a bear of very little brain and a typical user, so be gentle with me! I am also a natural blond! In simple sentences, trying very hard to avoid tech stuff where you can, help, please!

[oetimmy]

Ah this is such fun. After ages on this forum I found replies that say "Use a USB Filter" and no clue how to do that!

Eventually I worked it out. I clicked USB from the VirtualBox control panel thing before starting my virtual environment, and yes, I could add a USB filter. It looks to be USB port specific, so I have created one and can now see my USB drive.

That is not exactly obvious.

Nos all I have to do is to make the software realise it can see the drive, too. WIndows explorer can, but the Satnav software cannot