virtualbox.org

Hi there,

normally sharing an external USB HDD is no problem for VirtualBox. From my experience, you should close the drive on your Macintosh Host and then you are able to connect it to your VM. Otherwise the device is grey and not klickable.

Now, my Western Digital HDD goes in a kind of "sleep" mode, when it's been closed on the Macintosh Host. I can see it in the disk utility of Mac OS X but it's again not klickable from the sight of the VM. Also tried to add a filter, but without any success.
I have this "sleep mode" idea, because when I close the drive on the Mac, the HDD stopps running (you can hear that).

Currently I think it's because of the HDD's behavior - but I'm not 100% sure. What's your oppinion in that case?

Cheers,
thowi

Sounds reasonable, in which case I assume it's the plugging in that wakes the drive up.

Create a specific (not blank) USB filter for the drive while the host still owns it, this allows you to get drive ID etc. Then in future plug the drive in after the guest is running.

Personally I use Shared Folders to access external drives. You don't have to unmount/unplug and mount/plugin the drives. You don't have to create filters. And Shared Folders work with USB 3.0, Thunderbolt and Firewire drives which as far as I know VirtualBox doesn't. But that's just me.

mpack wrote:Create a specific (not blank) USB filter for the drive while the host still owns it, this allows you to get drive ID etc. Then in future plug the drive in after the guest is running.

Thanks for your reply! I also tried that - but doesn't work. I think it's just my stupid WD device . I will handle this problem with another computer - no problem.

@loukindjr:
You are right, when it's only about accessing the drive. But I wanted to install a Win8 To Go on the drive - so I think a simple shared folder wouldn't work. But I will now try to get it running on a regular hardware - this should work in any case

ahhh. I have three stupid Western Digital Hdds No Win8 to Go however.