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Accessing USB Drives in a Hyper-V VM

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Even if you don't work in a highly secure environment, you likely have a USB stash of utilities just as I do. Sure, I could copy the data from my USB to the VM or host but that takes time and unnecessary disk space or network bandwidth. Instead, I use a method suggested to me by one of my mentors, Mark Ghazai, to pass the USB drive through to the VM directly. This gives me instant access to the data without the extra network or disk space usage!

Target: Access USB drive from Hyper-V VM

Kill Shot: Use disk Pass-through method to present the USB drive directly to the VM

 

After you plug in your drive, open up disk management so you can take the USB drive offline

Right-click on the drive and select Offline

 

The drive should appear offline as seen below on your Hyper-V host where the VM is located

 

Now open up the settings on the VM you want to have access your USB drive. (note, you must have a SCSI controller available to add a drive to a running VM)

 

Click Add and select Physical hard disk: then choose your USB drive in the drop down. Click Ok

 

Now, log into the VM and open Disk Management. You should see the drive listed as offline. Right-click and select Online

 

You should now see the disk listed as online and accessible (note, my file system shows unknown because my drive is encrypted!)

 

If you open windows explorer, you should now see your USB drive listed

 

Special Thanks to Mark Ghazai for suggesting this!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Great

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Worked for me. Thank you! Made my day easier.

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2013
    Great article, thanks a lot HollisWms. It didn't work for me, bu it helped me to find another easy way to mount a USB drive to VM on Hyper-V. Check it out www.gokhancanpolat.com/.../mount-usb-hyper-v-virtual-machine Regards, Gökhan

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2013
    didn't work for me either.  Removeable drives don't have the Offline option.  The procedure works though if you want to connect a physical disk to a VM.

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2013
    I also don't have "Offline option". Someone know why?

  • Anonymous
    December 10, 2013
    Worked like a charm for me thanks!!!

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2014
    This sounds good, but in my case it is not possible to put offline my usb drive. In disk management GUI, the option does not display, and at the commandline diskpart tells that taking offline is not supported for removable media. How can I work around this ?

  • Anonymous
    April 21, 2014
    This worked perfectly for me and an External USB drive. I could offline it no problem. I think they were probably click in the in the wrong area.. it isn't in a drop down you have to click on the side where it reads the drive letter and it worked perfectly. This saved me a lot of money. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    April 29, 2014
    Thanks for this instruction. It works quite good.

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2014
    The first step worked for me, i.e.: Taking the USB drive offline. but then doesn't show up in the VM - offline or otherwise. Even after re-booting the VM no luck. Any idea why? I'm running W2k8R2 on both the Server and VM.

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2014
    I would suggest that try installing WinSCP (SFTP and FTP client) on Windows 8 host-OS to easily access the data files from your Hyper-V's virtual machine.

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2014
    This wasn't working for me on XP client. Come to find out SCSI Controller is not supported for XP. Using IDE Controller instead worked perfectly.

  • Anonymous
    October 17, 2014
    Perfect! Worked like a charm!

  • Anonymous
    November 18, 2014
    Excellent! Thank you so much!

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2015
    this works like a charm. The key is to right click on the description section of the drive, not the partition UI section. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2015
    Or you can share it over network. On host open USB drive properties. On Sharing tab setup Advanced sharing, choose name and check permissions. On VM right click on Computer > Map network drive and select your USB drive.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2015
    For me:
    If I plug USB thumb drive then Offline option is not available
    If I plug USB External drive which has 2.5" or 3.5" hard-drive then Offline option is available

    Works with the USB External drive which has 2.5" or 3.5" hard-drive !!!

    thank you

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2015
    thanks
    for sharing this article

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2015
    Thanks, helped me a lot. too easy,

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2015
    thanks

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2015
    This saved me after 5 hours of searching all over the internet !!!
    Thank you so !

  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2015
    No, USB stick driver (not USB hard drive) can't be taken offline.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2015
    Thank u very much, worked perfectly.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2015
    Hi I did the steps.but in the last step when Im trying to make my external hard disk online it says access is denied.
    whats the problem?
    help me please.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2015
    Hi I did the steps.but in the last step when Im trying to make my external hard disk online it says access is denied.
    whats the problem?
    help me please.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2015
    Hi I did the steps.but in the last step when Im trying to make my external hard disk online it says access is denied.
    whats the problem?
    help me please.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2015
    Hi I did the steps.but in the last step when Im trying to make my external hard disk online it says access is denied.
    whats the problem?
    help me please.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2015
    Thank you.......

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2015
    Strangely enough, I had the drive show up as an unknown device in windows 8.1 VM, I had to force the generic "disk drive" driver and it worked.

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2015
    Perfect - works beautifully

  • Anonymous
    August 21, 2015
    Thank you. I think this works only for NTFS formatted drives...The subject is covered on Page 200-201 in the Hyper-V resource kit book

  • Anonymous
    August 31, 2015
    Worked a treat.. Thank you..

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2015
    Files should be easy enough if the VM can be on the internet.... Install google drive! Not tried it yet but I will soon pretty sure it's the perfect solution! ;-)

  • Anonymous
    September 15, 2015
    well done Sir.

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2015
    Fantastic! Very helpful!

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2015

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  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2015
    No "offline" option in Windows 10 - Got a workaround?

  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2015
    Also from Win 10:

    DISKPART> select disk 1

    Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

    DISKPART> offline disk

    Virtual Disk Service error:
    The operation is not supported on removable media.

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2015
    Thank you so much.it worked for me

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2016
    Superb... worked perfectly.

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2016
    The comment has been removed