virtualbox.org

External USB Hard Drive: First off, Vbox is flakey with these

USB Filter: Just items

• Name
  Vendor ID
  Product Id
  Serial No

Drive needs to be unplugged before starting the virtual machine
and before unplugging, it should be ejected

• Ctrl-Click on the icon
  Select Eject
  Select to eject all partitions if asked

Once the virtual machine is started and ready, plug in the drive and the guest OS should acquire it.
If OSX should acquire it instead, you have encountered the "flakey". Shut down the vm and stop/quit Vbox to mitigate any damage

i have un-plugged it and try again, still the same ;-(

You are not clear if it works sometimes or not at all, and what error you get exactly.
The VM log is always helpfull as well - please see this post

usb host


UUID: c5894710-89b2-466f-9fd9-536eff1b7d8d
VendorId: 0x05ac (05AC)
ProductId: 0x1297 (1297)
Revision: 3.16 (0316)
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Product: iPhone
SerialNumber: 41b5c79ca6e06cdedbce2292667979866f79cb81
Address: p=0x1297;v=0x05ac;s=0x00007e98439fc4e1;l=0xfd120000
Current State: Busy

UUID: a0502b9e-e236-40d1-bc12-3ab634c362a9
VendorId: 0x05ac (05AC)
ProductId: 0x8242 (8242)
Revision: 0.22 (0022)
Manufacturer: Apple Computer, Inc.
Product: IR Receiver
Address: p=0x8242;v=0x05ac;s=0x000000002ad0b3d8;l=0xfd110000
Current State: Busy

UUID: a373be77-d3b3-4585-8b13-a733e276adfc
VendorId: 0x05ac (05AC)
ProductId: 0x8281 (8281)
Revision: 0.56 (0056)
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Product: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Address: p=0x8281;v=0x05ac;s=0x000000003b941232;l=0xfa113000
Current State: Busy

UUID: 1e000431-7726-48d4-ae7f-f104a5a0224c
VendorId: 0x0d49 (0D49)
ProductId: 0x7450 (7450)
Revision: 1.40 (0140)
Manufacturer: Maxtor
Product: Basics Portable
SerialNumber: 2HB2AMKR
Address: p=0x7450;v=0x0d49;s=0x00007f199da26521;l=0xfa120000
Current State: Unavailable


usb filter : none

Name: linux
Guest OS: Ubuntu
UUID: 6429f586-7ea5-486d-aa92-2498465749d3
Config file: /Users/julietteg/VirtualBox VMs/linux/linux.vbox
Snapshot folder: /Users/julietteg/VirtualBox VMs/linux/Snapshots
Log folder: /Users/julietteg/VirtualBox VMs/linux/Logs
Hardware UUID: 6429f586-7ea5-486d-aa92-2498465749d3
Memory size: 2864MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 12MB
HPET: off
Chipset: piix3
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 1
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: off
PAE: on
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: off
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: on
VT-x VPID: on
State: powered off (since 2013-01-05T17:24:40.475000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): on
IDE (1, 0): /Users/julietteg/Downloads/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso (UUID: 549dca8f-1ba8-4c74-891d-c8d900e910bf)
SATA (0, 0): /Users/julietteg/VirtualBox VMs/linux/linux.vdi (UUID: 4341a5ac-c277-49c2-ac6c-dedb3c93fda5)
NIC 1: MAC: 0800276A6134, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 1 Settings: MTU: 0, Socket( send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window( send:64, receive: 64)
NIC 2: MAC: 080027F568A4, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'en0: Ethernet', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 3: MAC: 0800273C0CD3, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'p2p0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 4: MAC: 0800274A7D8D, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'en1: Wi-Fi (AirPort)', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: CoreAudio, Controller: AC97)
Clipboard Mode: disabled
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Available remote USB devices:

<none>

Currently Attached USB Devices:

<none>

Shared folders:

Name: 'Downloads', Host path: '/Users/julietteg/Downloads' (machine mapping), writable

VRDE Connection: not active
Clients so far: 0

Guest:

OS type: Ubuntu
Additions run level: 0
Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB

I was refering to this part :

Guest log file (as an attachment) See your VirtualBox users guide for how to locate this if using CLI or right click the guest in the VirtualBox main manager and select show log. Then choose save.

here is the file...

Not much I can add on this I am afraid.
Perry and I agree you should consider using Share folders instead, see here

Hi

i can see my mac mini
and the USB!
BUT
still cannot see my disk in linux (guest)
it contains mutiple linux partition
i think it is because i did not mount them in the host (mac)

i have tried to mount it but without sucess

julietteg wrote:i can see my mac mini
and the USB!
BUT
still cannot see my disk in linux (guest)
it contains mutiple linux partition
i think it is because i did not mount them in the host (mac)

i have tried to mount it but without sucess

My goodness! Why did you not explain that earlier!

You need to eject the disk from OSX and because of the way the drive is formated, Disk Utility needs to do it.
Select 2 TB Hitachi . . . from left sidebar of Disk Util and Ctrl-Click. Select Eject from the pop-up menu and then start the vm

There are alternate ways for making the disk space available to virtual machines. The way you have chosen is difficult to use.

Edited to correct typo