VirtualBox: Share Folders between Windows and Linux in five steps Now even if VirtualBox is a really handy system, easy to install and works with a lot of different operating systems (not only Linux), you need to adjust some settings to share folders between the systems.

Software used: Host: Windows 7 VirtualBox: v4.3.6 Guest: MintMATE 16 Instructions: 1) Create a folder on your host machine, I like to have mine on the Desktop, but you can have it wherever you want. I recommend creating a file in the folder so that you can tell if the share is working. 2) Start VirtualBox and open the settings for your Mint system. Add a 'Machine Folder' and select the folder you want to share (the one you created in step 1). You will need to give it a name. Check the 'Make Permanent' box so you don't have to repeat these steps. You can then check 'Auto-mount' if you want VirtualBox to automatically mount the share folder.

If you do this it will be mounted in /media directory, along with the prefix 'sf_'. The other option is to manually set up where we want it to mount. 4) Start your virtual OS. Option 1: If you checked 'Auto-mount' in step 2) the share folder will actually be mounted in /mdeia. The problem is that your user isn't a member of the vboxsf group (meanig you can't open it). We can fix this by adding our-self to the group: Code: sudo gpasswd -a vboxsf sudo reboot You should now be able to navigate to the folder: Code: cd /media/sf_/ Note: 'In Linux guests, auto-mounted shared folders are mounted into the /media directory, along with the prefix 'sf_'.

For example, the shared folder myfiles would be mounted to /media/sf_myfiles.' This isn't very convenient, so we can create a link to the mounted share: Code: rmdir Desktop/VirtualBoxShare/ ln -s /media/sf_Share/ Desktop/ Option 2: If you want to set up the mount point yourself you will need to continue with these steps. 5) We now need to create a folder where the shared folder will be 'mounted'. In terminal (CTRL + ALT + T): Code: mkdir Desktop/VirtualBoxShare 6) You can now try mounting the share to this folder: Code: sudo mount -t vboxsf Share Desktop/VirtualBoxShare/ 7) If you go to the desktop and try and open this folder (or ls Desktop/VirtualBoxShare/), it will just hang. Something is wrong.

From my understanding Guest Additions has not been configured for the current user. To rectify this we need to reinstall it. From the 'devices' menu select 'Insert Guest Additions CD image.' , this should automatically mount the CD on the desktop. Then run the installer: Code: sudo /media//VBOXADDITIONS_4.3.6_91406/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run Reboot the system: Code: sudo reboot Now try remounting the share: Code: sudo mount -t vboxsf Desktop/VirtualBoxShare/ If you open the mount point, it should work.