Drive only works with EHCI *DISABLED*

[blsonne]

Hello,

I tried searching this forum as well as the one for Linux hosts, and I have not found a solution to my problem.

My problem is with my WinXP guest on my Ubuntu 12.04 host... I have a Western Digital 3TB external HDD. It is only able to be accessed when EHCI is _disabled_. Enable EHCI and it never shows up.

Any ideas?

[mpack]

I have a Western Digital 3TB external HDD

Sounds like a great device... though it would be more interesting to know what hdd your guest has (the hdd your host has is not relevant).

[blsonne]

Not sure I understand what you're getting at. Both the host and guest have their own HDDs and work fine with stuff on those drives, but when I try to access the external WD HDD from the guest, I cannot access it unless EHCI is disabled in virtual box. What HDDs are already present on the host or guest should be irrelevant.

[mpack]

My point is that the guest does not have a Western Digital 3TB drive - unless you connected one using USB, which you didn't mention doing. All you said was that the drive was external - you didn't say how or if it was connected to the guest. You mentioned EHCI without making clear if the setting you mentioned was on the host or the guest. All told you could be accessing the disk using USB, or raw disk access, or you could have a shared folder on the drive. I'd rather you be clear then I waste time discussing the wrong problem.

ps. XP does not support 3TB drives using its native drivers. If you managed to connect the drive anyway then corruption is a likely result. This should not be a problem if the drive comes with XP drivers, which you have installed.

pps. VirtualBox does not USB 3.0 drives, in case that's an issue.

[blsonne]

OK, let's try this again.

I have an external Western Digital 3 TB hard drive. This drive offers USB 3 and USB 2 connectivity. I wish to use this external drive with a Windows XP VM. I do not care whether it uses USB 3 or 2.

This Windows XP VM is running under Virtual Box 4.2.4 r81684 on an Ubuntu 12.04.1LTS virtual machine. Both the host and guest OSes are 32 bit.

When this external HDD is plugged into the physical machine using a USB port, and then the device is attached to the virtual box VM via the 'Devices' option on the menu, the corresponding entry will indeed show a checkmark. However, the connected drive does not show up in 'My Computer'.

Now... if I shutdown the XP VM, and under the VirtualBox Manager select this VM, and then navigate Settings -> USB, and then UNCHECK the "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" INSIDE OF VIRTUALBOX, then restart the XP VM, and then try to attach the external drive via the aforementioned procedure, it does indeed show up under my computer. I am accessing this drive in whatever is the default fashion when something is stuck into a computer and then used inside of a virtualbox vm. I am not doing anything fancy.

My question is thus this: why does the drive not show up unless this is unchecked?

[mpack]

My question is thus this: why does the drive not show up unless this is unchecked?

Presumably: because USB 3.0 is not supported, fallback to 2.0 is not working, but fallback to 1.0 is.

[ChipMcK]

My problem is with my WinXP guest ... I have a Western Digital 3TB external HDD . . . This drive offers USB 3 and USB 2 connectivity

For XP USB 3.0 drivers, check out http://xpdrivers.com/microsoft/_2_13576 ... 4AodcUkAIA

google search "usb 3.0 drivers windows xp"

[mpack]

USB 3.0 drivers for XP may be useful for future ref, but AFAICS there isn't much point at the moment, when VBox itself (i.e. the virtual USB host) does not support USB 3.0.

[ChipMcK]

Windows Vista and Windows 7, out-of-box, do not support USB 3.0 either