Windows XP Guest - Jaunty Host - Usb

First of all, USB will not work in VirtualBox if you are using the Open Source Edition (OSE) of VirtualBox. Get the full closed-source edition of VirtualBox from their website. There are many differences between the open-source edition and the closed-source version and one of them is USB.

I finally got USB working with Windows XP running as a guest inside VirtualBox running on a Ubuntu Jaunty host. First find out what the group id of the vboxusers group is:

$ grep vbox /etc/group
vboxusers:x::david

Then, enable the deprecated /proc/bus/usb inteface:

$ sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh

Add the following line after /proc is mounted, at the end of the do_start() function.

domount usbfs "" /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=,devmode=664

replacing with the you found in the first step. Make sure to reboot.
This didn't work for me until I rebooted. There you have it.
You shouldn't have to edit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh or /etc/fstab as some other internet sources have suggested.