How to mount a raw/real SATA partition on virtual machine

[Padre]

Can't quite get this. I created a vmdk that points to my disk partition with the command
* sudo vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "linux-32-1-root3.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/sda2
This gives me a vmdk that looks OK, but is owned by root, but that is the only way I can get the command to work.
I have tried chmod & chown in every way I can think of but when I try to add it to my VM I get the following error;

* Failed to open the hard disk file /home/wix/linux-32-1-root3.vmdk.
* Permission problem accessing the file for the medium '/home/wix/linux-32-1-root3.vmdk' (VERR_ACCESS_DENIED).
* Result Code: VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004)
* Component: Medium
* Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}
* Callee: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}
* Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)

I'm running a fresh install of VB 4.3.36 on a fresh install of Debian 8.3.0 Jessie

Does anybody have an solution for this?

Many TIA!

[Padre]

Update: Installed VB 5.0.14 -- No difference
* Changed permissions to 777 -- no difference.
* Changed ownership to me:vboxusers -- no difference.

[Martin]

You shouldn't need to use sudo if your user is a member of the right group for disk access.
What are the access rights for /dev/sda2?

[Padre]

When I do an ls on /dev/sda2 it shows 660 root:disk.
Is that what you mean?

copy&paste of ls -la: brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 Feb 23 10:29 /dev/sda2

[Martin]

Is your user account a member of the "disk" group?

[Padre]

I put my user in the disk group, and specified the entire pathname from root where the vmdk file would be
created and the create command worked with no sudo prefix. And the vmdk files attached to the VM with no complaints!

Now I need to find out how to remove all the vmdk files that don't work and how to specify a boot device for the VM!

Thanks for the pointers! Got me on the right track!!