openSUSE host, windows guest: can't connect USB hard drives

[helfrw]

Hallo,

Host is openSUSE 12.3, 3.7.10-1.28-default, i686, GNU/Linux with VirtualBox v 4.3.10,
guests are Windows 7 Home Premium, 32 bit and Windows XP Professional, SP3, 32 bit with Virtualbox Guest Addition 4.3.10

Problem: USB hard drives cannot be assigned a drive letter in guest. I use the windows program "Zentimo - storage manager" to safely remove USB devices. Zentimo shows activity by a rotation circle, if a device becomes plug-in. If I plug-in an USB hard disk, the circle rotates without end and not drive letter is ever asigned to the USB drive. It's the same on all windows guests with linux host (not so on Windows Vista, the second operating system of the dual boot machine).

Hardware: Hama/Conrad and/or Belking USB 2.0 5-port PCI card, on linux recognized as "00:0a.2 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD72010x USB 2.0 Controller (rev 04)". The USB HDD is connected to one of the 4 external USB ports of this card. If I plug-in the HDD to an USB port of motherboard "0:10.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)" the problem is solved and the guest (WIndows XP or Windows 7) assigs a drive letter to the device, but I want to use the 5-port PCI card (connected to a motherboard USB port the computer did not boot, if USB drive is powered on during boot sequence of BIOS).

I replaced already the USB 2.0 5-port PCI card with a new one, but problem still exists, so I assume it may be a problem of openSUSE 12.3 or a problem of VirtualBox. I downgraded VirtualBox to 4.3.6, but still the same and I used another VirtualBox Guest Addition version, but also same problem. I reinstalled "Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.10", the same problem still exists. "USB 2.0 controller" is checked in VirtualBox settings "USB devices".

I also uninstalled VirtualBox on host and reinstalled again the current version 4.3.10.

All USB drives (all of three different - TOSHIBA, SAMSUNG, IBM) can be mounted under host os openSUSE 12.3, but not in guest.

Here the output of

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usb-devices|grep Product

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S:  Product=EHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=EHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=Nova-T Stick
S:  Product=USB 3.5"-HDD
S:  Product=UHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=UHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=UHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=OHCI Host Controller
S:  Product=OHCI Host Controller

I wonder, why 1x EHCI, 3xUHCI and 2x OHCI Host Controller. The PIC card has 5 ports, the motherboard has 6 ports (4x backside, 2 in front of the computer)

Here the output of

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hwinfo --usb | grep "Host Controller"

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 Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default uhci_hcd UHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0001 "UHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default uhci_hcd UHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0001 "UHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default uhci_hcd UHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0001 "UHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default ohci_hcd OHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0001 "OHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default ohci_hcd OHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0001 "OHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default ehci_hcd EHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0002 "EHCI Host Controller"
  Model: "Linux 3.7.10-1.28-default ehci_hcd EHCI Host Controller"
  Device: usb 0x0002 "EHCI Host Controller"

Has anybody an idea, how the solve this problem?

regards
helfrw

[Perryg]

Have you installed the extension pack and is your user name in the vboxusers group on the host?

[helfrw]

Yes, and yes.

[Perryg]

Are you absolutely certain that your user name is in the vboxusers group?

Linux hosts really only have the two requirements I listed for USB to work in a guest.

Post the results of the following from the hosts terminal:
id
as well as:

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VBoxManage list extpacks

[helfrw]

I'm absolutely sure, my username is in the group vboxusers (since half a year and since installation of VirtualBox) , but I will check this again, when next time booting Linux, and I have also installed the Extension Pack, otherwise USB 2.0 drive connected to the motherboard USB ports would also not work. Just the USB ports from the PCI card make problems. The USB device is connected in the guest (see it in device manager and also with Zentimo storage manager), but no drive letter is asigned, so I cannot access the file system (NTFS) of the USB drive.

At the moment I work under my WIndows XP (there are no problems with the USB 2.0 5-port PCI card) and not under openSUSE Linux, so I will give you the result of

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VBoxManage list extpacks

next time I boot openSUSE.

[helfrw]

helmut@athlon:~> VBoxManage list extpacks
Extension Packs: 1
Pack no. 0: Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Version: 4.3.10
Revision: 93012
Edition:
Description: USB 2.0 Host Controller, Host Webcam, VirtualBox RDP, PXE ROM with E1000 support.
VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP
Usable: true
Why unusable:

groups
users disk lp www dialout audio cdrom video vboxusers

[Perryg]

Well I'm at a loss. You might want to post a ticket at bugtracker
I know that direct PCI is not supported but with USB I figured it should work. You do say it works in a Windows host so that pretty much adds to that theory.

You might look at different groups and see if adding your user name to some of them will allow it to work. This would answer any permission issues.

[helfrw]

Hallo

I added group "root" to my username and now it works in virtual machine guests "WIndows XP", In guest "Windows 7", which is running with only small ressources (1000 MB virtual RAM from total 2GB from host, host cpu ATHON XP 3000+ 1744 MHz), it seems to be a timing problem: Zentimo, which controls and manages USB devices, runs allways into timeout, because some signal is not coming in time, when an USB device begins to connect.

With journalctl I can now see additional lines:

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2014-04-24T11:30:01.779474+02:00 athlon /usr/sbin/cron[10153]: pam_unix(crond:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
2014-04-24T11:30:03.162501+02:00 athlon /USR/SBIN/CRON[10153]: pam_unix(crond:session): session closed for user root

To mount the USB device in guest, it seems, that host or guest needs root access rights. But something is also strange: after successless connection in guest Windows 7 and unplugin the USB drive, I have to do several tries to mount the drive under host Linux.

[herakles]

Hi again from Rodrigues Island ,
Republic of Mauritius
Indian Ocean

I've got a interesting puzzle for you :

I'm running a Win7 32 bit guest on a Linux Mint 17 Quiana 64 bits.

My aim is to setup an BOOTABLE WIN 7 external usb 640 gb laptop hdd .
By using Windows Automatic Installation Kit, I was able to setup a fully bootable and running Win7 Os on a 16 usb flash drive. I did it through my Win 7 virtual machine which fully recognised usb drives such as usb flash drives, usb dvd writer etc....
But my Vm cannot recognise an external hdd laptop in a sata usb casing. It says that appropriate driver missing....
Remember that Windows do not install on an external usb drive and this is why I am trying to bypass this parameter. Otherwise, I will have to do a Dual boot Mint 17 -Win 7

Can you help me please ? I will try to update the WIn 7 Vm drivers but i don't trust this...

Thank you so much for the unvaluable help you provide to dummies like me !

Caron

[helfrw]

But my Vm cannot recognise an external hdd laptop in a sata usb casing. It says that appropriate driver missing....

you have to install appropriate SATA drivers (i.e. Intel(R) PCHM SATA AHCI Controller) on your Windows guest. Search with Google for SATA drivers (they not included in VirtualBoxGuestAdditions).

regards to Rodrigues Island, Mauritius
helfrw