FG

How to access an SD card from a virtual machine?

Fresh3 days ago
Mar 15, 2026274531 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

I want to format an SD card from my Linux virtual machine. I have a built-in SD card reader in my laptop. I tried using VirtualBox and VMware Player and installed Ubuntu 10.04 guest. None of them are showing the SD card reader as a device. I can access the SD card from the Windows host. I am not interested in solutions using shared folders as I want to access the SD card as hardware (it should show up in ). I basically want to set up the SD card for BeagleBoard, but I don't want to install a physical Ubuntu on my PC.

Error Output

/dev

Unverified for your environment

Select your OS to check compatibility.

1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Fix for: How to access an SD card from a virtual machine?

Low Risk

On newer MacBook Pro's the SD card slot is no longer exposed as a USB device. Because of this you'll need to attach the raw device to the VM in order to gain raw access to the whole card. Full documentation is in the Advanced Storage Configuration section of the VirtualBox documentation. As clearly stated in the docs: Warning - Raw hard disk access is for expert users only. Incorrect use or use of an outdated configuration can lead to total loss of data on the physical disk. Most importantly, d…

Awaiting Verification

Be the first to verify this fix

Sign in to verify this fix

Environment