Win7 unmounts USB HDD

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hank

Win7 unmounts USB HDD

Post by hank »

Hi folks,
I've got LM 18.3 Cinnamon (kernel 4.13.0-26 incl. the last CPU firmware security patches) + Virtualbox 5.2.6 incl. all the latest extensions/additions. The guest OS running in the VB is Win7. Before starting up Win7 the VB correctly detects and allows me to set the USB 3.0 external HDD (2.0 TB, Axagon box, filesystem ext4) using the xHCI driver and to define a shared directory. The trouble is that once started up the Win7 automatically unmounts the HDD from Linux and after the Win shutdown (while VB running all the time) the HDD is automatically mounted to Linux again.
Where should I look for the cause?

Greetings from Czechia,
hank
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Cosmo.
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Level 24
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Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 7:34 am

Re: Win7 unmounts USB HDD

Post by Cosmo. »

You should really not use a USB drive in a VB guest. (Other usb devices are OK.) What you encountered is the usual mechanism, how usb devices get passed from the host to the guest; an usb device can never be mounted in host and guest at the same time. The consequence is, that as soon as the device gets passed to the guest it gets hard disconnected from the host - that is unavoidably. The next consequence is possible data loss, as this behavior is the same, as if you would (without any virtualization) simply unplug an usb device from the computer without prior ejecting it.

If you need to transfer to / from a VB guest to an USB drive do it with the detour of a shared folder.
hank

Re: Win7 unmounts USB HDD

Post by hank »

OK, thx a lot for your explanation.
Cosmo.
Level 24
Level 24
Posts: 22968
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 7:34 am

Re: Win7 unmounts USB HDD

Post by Cosmo. »

From the starting post I assume, that you had created an usb filter in the VM settings. You should remove it.
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