USB flashdrive not accessible under Ubuntu Hardy inside Virtualbox

[Steven Davies-Morris]

Steven Davies-Morris wrote:
> I'm running 64bit Ubuntu (Hardy Heron 8.04) and Vbox 1.6.2. I am
> running the latest kernel as of a few days ago. I plug in my 
> flashdrive which is a 2gb Adata. It pops up immediately and is both
> readable and writeable under the native host O/S. I just tested in
> again before posting to be sure that it's working when accessed via
> *nix. In fact everything works exactly as I would expect at the O/S
> level.
> 
> But then I go to start Vbox, running Windows XP with SVCPK 2. I 
> have a USB 2.0 filter in place that was configured by autodetect in
> the Vbox settings. It assigned everything except a port (which is
> blank). I proceed to start up WInXP, but when it's running I check
> "devices" and the USB flashdrive appears there, but it is 
> grayed-out.
> 
> So what have I done wrong, or what step have I missed?
> 
> I'm posting this to both the Vbox and the UBuntu tech lists.

Answering my own question on both tech lists. Hope this helps out some
other person...

The solution can be found on the vbox forums. I was led to an articel
by Dan Marner posted here:

<http://danmarner.blogspot.com/2008/06/installing-virtualbox-162-on-ubuntu-804.html>

Just be very careful when editing the files mentioned, especially
/etc/fstab.

I used sudo gedit wherever an editor was called for.

Finally, the edit to the line containing "usbfs" appears in Dan
Marner's article shown as two lines. It's one line in Ubuntu, can't
speak for what it might be elsewhere.
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