virtualbox.org

I have an external USB Western Digital Elements 3TB hard drive attached to my computer. When I first set up my VirtualBox 4.2.16 system with Guest Additions this hard drive was visible on both the host and guest systems. I set it up with a USB filter. It disappeared on the host when I upgraded to VirtualBox 4.2.18 (but was still visible on the guest), so I rolled VB back to version 4.2.16 but this USB hard drive is still visible only on the guest. Any suggestions for how I can make it reappear on the host? I realize I will probably need to shut down the guest to see this hard drive on the host or at least disable the filter. So far nothing I've tried has worked.

My host system is Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64 bits on an HP p6267c desktop with 6 GB RAM dedicated to the host.
My guest system is Windows XP Home Edition SP3 Version 2002 32 bits with 2 GB RAM.
The VM log file is attached.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

First, VirtualBox doesn't support USB 3.0 devices, which 3TB drives often will be.

Second, USB hard drives cannot be shared (at least not via the USB bus), so it simply isn't possible that you ever saw this drive simultaneously in both host and guest. If a guest grabs ownership of the device then the host will lose it. Since the grabbing is done by a redirection filter it isn't possible that the grab was successful but the host continues to see the drive.

The only way host and guest can use the drive simultaneously is by locating a shared folder on the drive. See the user manual for details. Using this technique the USB constraints will not be relevant.

To make the host see the drive again, simply shut down the VM, then unplug/replug the drive while the VM is not running.