[Solved] Unable to view / move files to USB

[Kessa]

Hi,

I'd like to be able to move some files from my Guest to Host. I've set drag/drop to bi-directional but apparently that only works for text copied to the clipboard.

As a result I've been thinking of other ways to do it and though that the quickest would be to simply copy them to a USB, and grab them from there off the host. However, even that I doesn't seem to be simple

In VirtualBox settings, I've created a filter for the USB device.
In the Virtual Environment (Ubuntu guest running on Windows host) my USB device does seem to be getting recognised (i.e. if I click on the USB icon at the bottom toolbar, the USB device is listed, and there is a flashing dot which seems to indicate it is being read).

However, I can't seem to open it to copy the files across (in Windows I'd just double click the drive but I'm not sure if Ubuntu has some weird way of doing it as that doesn't seem to work)

On Ubuntu, I've gone to Applications > Disks and it seems to recognise it as it's listed. It is listing the name, id, size, etc. However, double clicking it does nothing.

"Device" shows: "/dev/sdb1"
"Partitioning" shows: "Master book record".
"Partion" shows: "Nnknown"
"Contents" shows: "Unknown" so perhaps it's having trouble actually reading the data?


I've tried running

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sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

That seemed to run OK.

Not sure what to do/try next. I'm used to Window where you just plug it in an away you go

[scottgus1]

The simplest way is to use the Guest Additions Shared Folders, if you can or have already installed the Guest Additions in the guest. Then you choose a host folder in the guest's Settings, don't make it read-only. Then you can access the "vboxsvr" network device inside the guest, and your host folder will be there for file swapping.

The next simplest way is to set up a normal network between the host and guest. Use Bridged to make the guest appear as just another one of the PCs on your network, or Host-only, if you only want host & guest to communicate, but no other PCS on your network.

USB is not accessible by two OSs at once. The USB device is either in the ghost or in the guest, not both. You'd have to filter the USB device into the guest, then deactivate the filter and unplug/replug the USB to get the host to see it. Then turn the filter on and unplug/replug to get the guest to see it again.

[Kessa]

Thanks Scott. In light of that I thought I'd try going down the shared folder route:

I followed this tutorial OK:
http://www.htpcbeginner.com/mount-virtu ... n-windows/

Then, for part 2 (setting up the share folder for the Ubuntu Guest OS) I tried following this part:
http://www.htpcbeginner.com/mount-virtu ... ntu-linux/

My share is showing up at the following location@

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media>sf_VM-Share

(Note: It's still outside of my username folder)

When I click the folder it says:

This location could not be displayed.
You do not have the permissions necessary to view contents of "sf_VM-Share"

At first glance the tutorial seems to predict that issue and provides a step to follow:

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sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf USER

I've tried that (even though the shared folder sits outside of my username folder, and I've also tried running that with "root" as the username, but neither of those seems to have resolved the issue.

At this point the tutorial seems to assume everything will be working OK so there's no extra info on what to try if that doesn't work so I'm stuck again Any ideas? Thanks

[scottgus1]

I'm not that much into Linux (they make live CDs, that's about all I know ) But the User manual section 4.3 has some stuff about mounting the shared folders on a Linux guest.

[Perryg]

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=15868

[Kessa]

Sorted!
Somehow I'd managed to remove the vboxadditions.iso. I re-added that and can now view the contents of the shared folder. Thanks for your help Scott