VirtualBox, problem mounting shared folder

[Colin Law]

On 8 December 2011 18:27, sdavmor <sdavmor at systemstheory.net> wrote:
> On 12/08/2011 08:40 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> I hope someone can help with mounting shared folders in VirtualBox
>> (4.1.2).  I am using this for the first time, running a Precise
>> virtual machine in Ubuntu 11.10 host.  I have installed the Guest
>> Additions which seem to be working ok except that I cannot get shared
>> folders to work.
>> In the guest os I added the user to group vboxsf.
>> In Devices>  Shared Folders I added a share with path /home/colinl
>> (which is on the host) named it host_colinl, checked Auto mount and
>> Make Permanent.
>> I re-booted the guest.
>> I see that it has correctly created the folder /media/sf_host_colinl
>> but it shows as empty (even with sudo) and in nautilus it does not
>> show the mounted icon on the folder.
>> I removed the share from Devices>  Shared Folders and added a new one
>> with a different path and share name downloads.  This time I did not
>> select auto mount.
>> In a terminal in the guest I created /media/host_downloads then
>> sudo mount -t vboxsf downloads /media/host_downloads
>> and it says
>> /sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device.
>>
>> dmesg shows nothing at that point, nor does syslog.
>>
>> Google has not helped me.  Any suggestions gratefully received.
>>
>> Colin
>
>
> You might want to try the Virtualbox support list.

Yes I might, and indeed will, if no-one here can help.  I know many
here use VirtualBox and if it is a Ubuntu specific (or even 12.04
specific) problem then others may have come across the issue.

Thanks

Colin