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[SOLVED] LM14 under VirtualBox 4.2.4 Cannot mount USB drives

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:08 am
by suikodian
I cannot mount USB hard-drive in Linux Mint 14 guest with MATE 64-bit under Virtual Box 4.2.4 on Mac OS X host. The USB hard-drive appears as ticked in Virtual Box but Linux Mint cannot see it. Even gparted and gnome-disk-util cannot find the hard-drive. Here is what I did:

Installed the extension pack for Virtual Box 4.2.4
Enabled USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller and added specific and generic filters under Virtual Box settings.
In Linux Mint, added the user to vboxusers group.
installed guest additions

Output from

Code: Select all

$ dmesg | tail
[  178.362270] usb 1-1: >new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd
[  193.513749] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/64, error -110
[  208.762667] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/64, error -110
[  209.009744] usb 1-1: >new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd
[  224.156513] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/64, error -110
[  239.405686] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/64, error -110
[  239.652504] usb 1-1: >new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[  244.710911] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/8, error -110
[  249.830253] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/8, error -110
[  250.080682] usb 1-1: >new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd
[  255.121222] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/8, error -110
[  260.241984] usb 1-1: >device descriptor read/8, error -110
[  260.347486] hub 1-0:1.0: >unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
Moreover, the /etc/udev/rules.d/10-vboxdrv.rules file is missing. Virtual Box manual says this file "makes the USB devices accessible to all users in the vboxusers group." However, I do not know how to load the vboxdrv kernel module.

Could it be an issue with Virtual Box? I was able to mount the same hard-drive on standalone install of Linux Mint.

Re: Linux Mint 14 under VirtualBox 4.2.4 Cannot mount USB dr

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:32 am
by cwsnyder
Is your USB drive plugged in prior to starting VirtualBox? I have noticed reports that VirtualBox does not support hot-swap, where you plug in a device and it is mounted during your VirtualBox session. It doesn't even work well for swapping DVDs in your non-USB DVD drive.

Otherwise, you have done all that I know to suggest. And yes, the problem is not Linux Mint, it is the virtual machine mechanism. You might try another host system, such as the Xen, KVM, or VMWare player hosts.

Re: Linux Mint 14 under VirtualBox 4.2.4 Cannot mount USB dr

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:08 am
by remoulder
You could try asking at http://forums.virtualbox.org/

Re: Linux Mint 14 under VirtualBox 4.2.4 Cannot mount USB dr

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 3:25 pm
by suikodian
The problem turned out to be bug #7462 in Virtual Box - more than one guest processor will kill USB. Configuring Virtual Box to utilize only a single CPU resolved the problem :D
Thanks for helping me :)