virtualbox.org

Hi,

So I have a card reader built into a Win 8.1 Lenovo Laptop. I am using Porteus Distro on VM Box V.4.3.20.

My objective is to use the card reader to read and modify an ext4 based SD card (carrying Raspian) within the confines of the VM. I can see USB devices when I boot into Porteus but I am unable to see the Card Reader. I did some digging and I found the following:

• 1) The card reader doesnt show up in the list of USB devices on devman in windows, it shows up as a portable drive connected to PCIE.

• 2) My processor has support for VT-x and not VT-d. From what I could make out, that restricts access to the PCIE bus.

• 3) I tried the shared folder technique, didnt work. Not really sure whether the VM is even detecting the Card reader.

So any ideas?

First post here, be gentle

-K

A VM has no direct access to host hardware.

Shared folders will work if you install the Guest Additions in the guest (see chapter 4 of the user manual). Whether you can do that with Porteus I have no idea. Shared folders only require that the named folder exists - the VM doesn't care what bus technology a host storage device uses. You could also create a true network share, rather than a GA shared folder.

If you want to use the shared folder feature to access the card reader you probably have to insert the card before starting the guest VM, so that the path "exists" in the host OS.

Last time I tested it (which was admittedly some time ago), the GAs shared folders feature didn't mind if the folder was on a removable drive which was not present when the VM was started. Once you plug it in it worked fine. This is a good way to use USB flash drives, IMHO better than using the obvious USB redirection method.