Enabling USB Devices In Virtual OS

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Damager

2125 posts

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#37263 9-Jul-2009 19:05

Hi Team,

I have a hitachi hdd which unfortunately doesnt have a usb driver for Vista (im running windows 7).

Google shows that this is a common issue with this particular series of hitachi deskstar hard drives, where if you attach it to a usb powered enclosure, windows says no driver.

What i have done is installed virtual pc 2007. My idea was to attach this hard drive via usb and then its readable in the virtual xp system. Am i able to enable USB devices in this virtual system. I wanted to attach the hitachi drive, and also another external hard drive via usb, so i can pull the data off the hitachi.

I looked in the options in Virtual PC 2007, but there was nothing in the settings re USB settings.

Is there another way i can do this??

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freitasm

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Geekzone

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#233197 9-Jul-2009 20:06

Virtual PC doesn't support USB. The new Virtual PC on Windows 7 with Windows XP Virtual allows you to capture USB ports though.

Damager

2125 posts

Uber Geek

#233236 9-Jul-2009 21:36

ive installed virtualbox which does support usb.

now ive got virtualbox running and it shows one of my external hard drives (the drive where i want to copy data to) but its not showing the other external drive in my computer, even though the usb icon shows 2 USB devices ticked. so im a bit stuck as to how to make my computer show both external drives.

virtualbox says both usb devices have been "captured" but my computer shows just one in the virtual xp.

any ideas?

d3Xt3r

688 posts

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#235261 14-Jul-2009 17:30

That's a limitation of the USB enclosure+HDD mate. Nothing much you can do there, except connect it directly to your comp. What interface is it? If it's SATA, you should be able to simply plug in a cable from the drive to inplace of your computer. If it's ATA, you could try an IDE-to-SATA adapter.
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Also, did you try any other OS in the VM, like say the latest Ubuntu or Knoppix?