I have a PC with Windows 7 Ultimate (A) running on it. From within that OS I have VirtualBox running another Windows 7 instance (B).

Is there any way for the Windows 7 (B) to access files from Windows 7 (A)? Ideally I'd like to be able to access them without having to copy them into the VM instance running because I don't have a big enough hard drive to do so... The hard drive has a folder with 1.5 TB of data (on a 2 TB hard drive), so copying it to a VM instance just wouldn't work.

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4 Answers

There are several ways to accomplish this.

You can use VBox's own Shared folders feature.

For this: Go to Settings of the Virtual Machine and then select: Shared Folders.

Click on Add Shared Folder button. Specify folder path and folder name.

In Virtual Machine you go to \\vboxsrv\

you would see your folders.

You can also Create a network share and access that share from within B to A.

5

I assume you have your VM up and running. Follow these steps:

  1. On the VM window, Go to Tools -> Insert Guest additions CD Image. enter image description here

  2. You'll see a new CD drive in My computer. open it and start "VBoxWindowsAdditions"enter image description here

  3. Follow setup to install guest addition on the Guest machine. Reboot the guest.
  4. Next, open VM settings:enter image description here
  5. Go to Shared Folders -> right click -> add shared folder -> add the folder you want to share: enter image description here
  6. Your shared folder will appear under My Computer in the guest machine.

You can follow similar method for other operating systems too.

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Another option is just to copy files:

Select Virtual Machine and go to Settings - General - Advanced, there you can configure Shared clipboard and Drag'n'Drop support. I selected Bidirectional option for both.

Now you can drag-drop files between Host and Guest, also you can copy text in Host machine and Paste it on Guest VM (and vice-versa)

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The most simple way is to use USB Flash Memory:

1- Connect your USB Flash Memory to your computer.

2- Your flash memory should get recognized to your virtual machine in:

Setting > USB > Add new USB

3- Run your VB machine and go to removable drive as usual and explore your files.

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