USB device

[Alberto Novo]

Hello,

I have a Ubuntu guest on Win 7 host, but I can't access to USB drives. Can you help?
Thank you,

Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[mpack]

Not enough info, and anyway the question has already been asked and answered too many times already. Read the USB sections of the user manual, and use Google "usb site:forums.virtualbox.org" (the forums internal search does not work for three letter words).

[Alberto Novo]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply. This is my first contact with linux.
I am going to follow your advice.

Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[Alberto Novo]

Dear mpack,

Sorry about be back again, but I can't find any solution.

I use VB 4.2.18 on a Windows 7 professional host. The guest is Windows XP professional SP3.

The problem is that the Win XP dosen´t recognize the external "Iomega HDD". I get the message: "No USB devices attached".

I have created a filter but I didn´t specify any filter criteria because I don´t know any specification about the "Iomega HDD".

When I have ran "VBoxMange list usbhost" on my host command line I get the message "Host USB Devices: <none>".

Can you help me?

Best regards,

Alberto Novo

[mpack]

The extension pack is required for USB2 support. Have you installed this (on the host)? In fact please post a VM log file which will answer that question (zip up the "VBox.log" file from the "Logs" subfolder of the VM, and attach it here).

If you have the extpack installed then best guess: you have the device plugged into a USB3 port, which VirtualBox does not support prior to VirtualBox v4.3.0.

VirtualBox v4.3.0 still doesn't support USB3 devices, in USB3 ports, but does support USB2 devices in USB3 ports. Of course, all USB3 devices should step down to USB2 if plugged into a USB2 port, hence VBox should support that too.

[Alberto Novo]

Dear mpack,

Thank you for your reply.
I am attaching what I think is VBox.log file.
And also I am attaching a error mensage file I have got when I have tried install Extension pack.

Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[mpack]

I'm amazed that a USB is your only issue with this VM. IMHO you are assigning too little memory to it. You are only allocating 192MB RAM, on your host I recommend 1GB. It looks like you also allocated just 10GB for the system drive? A drive that small usually gets congested, leading to big performances problems.

If you want to fix these problems you should fix the disk size first. The safest way would be to clone the entire VM, then resize the disk, then increase the RAM. Increasing the RAM will increase the swap file size, hence resize the disk first.

VirtualBox VM 4.2.18 r88780 win.amd64 (Sep 6 2013 14:21:01) release log
...
00:00:03.925577 Installed Extension Packs:
00:00:03.925623 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 4.2.12 r84980; VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP)

As highlighted above, you have a mismatch in the extpack and VirtualBox versions. The two are intended to be kept in step. The error message you are seeing is most likely due to having the new extpack file in a folder whose path includes accented characters. You should move the file to a path that uses only plain roman characters and then should install. This VBox bug was fixed in v4.3.0 - but if I were you I would leave v4.3.x to mature for a while, and live with this problem in the meantime.

[Alberto Novo]

Dear mpack,

Thank you for your post reply.
So, I am going to do yours instructions.

Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[Alberto Novo]

Dear mpack,

I have installed a new version of VirtualBox 4.3.0 r89960 and Windows XP Professional SP3.
I attach the logs files.
My host system is Windows 7 Home Edition.
My USB Device is an external Iomega HDD.
I have realized that I haven't access to Iomega HDD on the Host and on the Guest. If I power off the VM then I get access to the Iomega HDD on the Host.

Thank you,
Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[Alberto Novo]

Dear sirs,

I need your help. I can not to use my hosts USB devices. Thank you.

Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[mpack]

Do other USB devices work? It's possible the IOMega part is a USB3 device - VirtualBox does not currently support connecting these devices directly to a VM.

However, you might get better results by connecting the device indirectly, i.e. create a shared folder on the drive (it is ok to create shared folders on removable drives). In fact you can share the root folder of the drive if you wanted to, but I don't like doing that since it's an invitation for guest malware to infect it.

If you go the shared folder route then remember to remove the USB filter from the VM, otherwise the host will lose the drive as before.

[Alberto Novo]

Hi mpack,

Thank you for your instructions.
I can access my IOmega HDD by sharing folders.
The problema is that I need to access a USB device — I want to connect a laser engraving machine to my Laptop. So I would like to manage connect USB devices.
I have read the VB's manual several times and I don't no what do more.

Thank you.
Best regards,
Alberto Novo

[mpack]

Everything I know about connecting a USB device to a Windows guest is encapsulated here. If this doesn't help then I'm afraid there's nothing else I can do.