Niels Hoffmann

Accessing USB Device in Virtual Box

Turned out that accessing a FlashCard from a VirtualBox Debian running on OS X Lion is not so straight forward as first anticipated. Well, a little googling found the answers needed and here’s a setup that worked for me:

Plug in the card reader (or any USB device) to your computer and let Finder mount it.

In VirtualBox select Settings -> Ports -> USB. That should you present with a dialog where you can add and edit Filters. Settings →v Ports → USB

Click the green plus sign and in the then opening dialog delete everything except Name, Vendor ID and Product ID.

Your Vendor and Product ID will probably differ

Now start your VirtualBox Debian and check dmesg. The reader should have been recognised as /dev/sda.

I am Niels Hoffmann, software developer, music afficionade, sailor.
Take a look at my CV and check out my projects.
You can follow me on Twitter at @zentralmaschine, get in touch via email to niels@zentralmaschine.net and find me on Github or LinkedIn.