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I have a PC with Windows 7 Ultimate (A) running on it. From within that OS I have VirtualBox running another Windows 7 instance (B).

Is there any way for the Windows 7 (B) to access files from Windows 7 (A)? Ideally I'd like to be able to access them without having to copy them into the VM instance running because I don't have a big enough hard drive to do so... The hard drive has a folder with 1.5 TB of data (on a 2 TB hard drive), so copying it to a VM instance just wouldn't work.

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My English is not the best, so heres a pic. I hope this is the option, you looking 4. imagebanana.com/view/ctk2a3sz/VboxAB.png – user115002 Jan 24 '12 at 2:15

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There are several ways to accomplish this.

You can use VBox's own Shared folders feature.

For this: Go to Settings of the Virtual Machine and then select: Shared Folders.

Click on Add Shared Folder button. Specify folder path and folder name.

In Virtual Machine you go to \\vboxsrv\

you would see your folders.

You can also Create a network share and access that share from within B to A.

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Will either of these need to do a copy of the file (even if into a temporary folder) to utilize it? I know network shares across different machines work like this... I never did a network share on the same machine. Also, same goes for the shared folder (is that a situation where the file gets copied to be used)? – m-y Jan 24 '12 at 2:16
No. It will not copy your files. That's why it's called Shared Folder – bakytn Jan 24 '12 at 2:18
Once this works you'll get the checkmark :) – m-y Jan 24 '12 at 2:21
Using the second approach is more harder though. You would need to play with Networking (like change network attachment to Bridged) etc. The first and most obvious way must solve your problem perfectly. – bakytn Jan 24 '12 at 2:21
myermian, just in case it will not work. Probably you would need to install Extenstion Pack from official downloads page: virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads download it. And then just double click on it. – bakytn Jan 24 '12 at 2:23

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