Shared Folder has 0 bytes free

[mike_bio]

I'm running VB 4.2_10 on Ubuntu 12.04 as the host and a Win7 guest. I have set up a shared folder between the two OSes, but when I try to save to this folder, I get the error message "There is not enough space on home (\\vboxsrv). You need XXX KB to copy these files. home(\\vboxsrv) Space free: 0 bytes Total size: 0 bytes"

In the VB Settings-> Shared Folders for the Win7 guest OS I see the name "home" and path "/home" listed with Auto Mount = Yes and Access = Full.

This is a relatively new set up, but in the past I was able to write to this shared folder. I've tried shutting down VB completely and restarting, but the problem perists. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to diagnose and fix this problem?

[mpack]

A shared folder is not a disk drive, it's a software interface which has no concept of free space. I expect the message means that the host has refused you write access for any of several possible reasons.

[AndreasH]

I'm having the same problem. It does not have to do with write permissions - it is possible to create an empty folder or file. At least with Windows 7 as a guest OS, it definitely has to do with the free space reported. Windows seems to check it and refuses to write/copy when it thinks there is not enough free space.

Unfortunately, there is no 'real' solution to this since Windows has no concept of subtree mounts like Linux does. I have shared the folder /media with my VMs, which allows me to access all removable drives mounted under Linux (the host OS). The free space reported is that of the root file system, where /media resides on. It is not possible for Windows to get the free space on any of the subfolders of /media.

IMHO the best solution would be to allow VirtualBox to report a ridiculously large amount of free space on a shared folder (> 4TB), so at least one can copy any amount of data to a shared folder unless it is really full (in which case you would get an I/O error).

[dlharper]

IMHO the best solution would be to allow VirtualBox to report a ridiculously large amount of free space on a shared folder (> 4TB), so at least one can copy any amount of data to a shared folder unless it is really full (in which case you would get an I/O error).

I'm happy to echo this. (Perhaps it should go in the "Suggestions" forum.)

Although it is true that:

A shared folder is not a disk drive, it's a software interface which has no concept of free space.

the folder still appears as a disk drive to the guest. Programs saving from the guest often query the space available before saving, and they report an "out of space" type error if they think there is not enough room. The space reported to these programs seems quite random. One program I have will save to the shared folder about 50% of the time.

What always works on my system is to save from the program to a location within the guest, and then use Windows Explorer to copy to the shared location. I presume that Explorer uses a different function to read the space available from the one the said program does.

[loukingjr]

I can only speak directly about Mac hosts seeing that's all I have. Shared folders work just fine in either direction whether running a Windows or Linux guest.

I can say however, since there are many, many users with Windows or Linux hosts running various guests, with working shared folders, the problem lies elsewhere.

[dlharper]

I'm not complaining. In general, shared folders work perfectly well. It is just that some programs report that they are lacking in space when in fact there is a huge amount of space available.

It may be unsolvable because it could be the result of the way these programs read the space. Some older programs have problems with large disk drives, and tend to think they are full when they are not. If they read the size and store the result in a 4-byte variable, for instance, then anything larger than 4Gb is going to give problems.

[loukingjr]

I'm not complaining. In general, shared folders work perfectly well. It is just that some programs report that they are lacking in space when in fact there is a huge amount of space available.

It may be unsolvable because it could be the result of the way these programs read the space. Some older programs have problems with large disk drives, and tend to think they are full when they are not. If they read the size and store the result in a 4-byte variable, for instance, then anything larger than 4Gb is going to give problems.

I didn't think you were complaining

I suppose there are 32bit apps that would have an issue with large drives. I have a W7 and a W8.1 guest that point to a shared folder that is a 500GB partition. I don't have old programs on either however.