Does VirtualBox support hard drives and USB portable drives?

Question

I'm new to VirtualBox and just installed it in my Windows 7. I installed Windows XP in my VirtualBox installation, and I don't know how to import some of my stuff from my Windows 7 installation. My portable drives can't be seen in Windows XP, but they can be seen in my Windows 7.

How is that? Is there a solution?

I can't upload the files to the Internet and just download it because my files are kind of big and would take some time to download.

P.S.: I installed Windows XP to install WinPwn for my iPhone, WinPwn won't run in Windows 7.

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Sorry for that. Well basically here's what I want to do,

• I need to copy some large files from my portable drive to my virtual Windows XP
• When I can now access my portable drive in my virtual Windows XP, I can now also copy and install WinPwn.
• I also want to detect my iPhone in my virtual Windows XP.

How can that happen?

Answer 1

You basically need to go to the USB tab and pass through the device.

I would be VERY careful doing something like this; your iPhone may restart several times throughout the process, and it is possible that it may not get picked up and will basically get added to the host first then be passed through to the guest after.

I would seriously warn against doing this and even using an old machine for it, USB in a VM is good for standard devices that just require a connection for one time use (webcams, memory sticks, etc.) but if restarting the device is part of the process (updates, etc.) you have to be so careful and make sure that VirtualBox is able to make it transparent and pass through the device the moment it is plugged in.

Answer 2

Create VirtualBox Shared Folders for your Windows XP install. Copy the files from your USB drive to the shared folder in Windows 7. It will be available to both the host and guest operating systems. In principle you could also make the USB drive shared, but I do not recommend this.

I have never been able to make the USB features of VirtualBox work correctly. Also, note that USB devices are only available in the non-free VirtualBox, not the Open Source Edition.