How to Access an External USB Drive from a Hyper-V VM

Read this guide to learn how to access a USB drive connected to a Hyper-V host from a virtual machine. Connecting a USB drive via the method described in this article is known as “passthrough mode.”

Step 1: Set the USB Drive on the Hyper-V Host Offline

Before you can access a USB drive from a Hyper-V VM, you must set it “offline” on the host. Follow these steps to complete this task.

A USB stick cannot be put Offline from Disk Management. So, the drive must be an external drive connected via USB.

1. Right-click the Windows Start menu and click Computer Management.

2. Then, on the left pane of Computer Management, click Disk Management.

3. If the USB disk is Online, right-click it and select Offline.

Once the disk is offline, it will display “offline” with a red icon.

Close Computer Management and proceed to step 2 below.

Step 2: Connect the USB Drive to the VM via Hyper-V Manager

1. Open Hyper-V Manager, right-click the VM and select Settings.

2. Next, click SCSI Controller > Hard Drive > Add. This adds a new virtual HDD to the SCSI controller and the newly added virtual Hard Drive will be selected.

3. Finally, on the details panne, select “Physical hard disk.” The USB drive will be selected (assuming it is the only external offline drive on the host).

   Click Apply, then OK to close the VM settings.

Step 3: Access the USB Disk on the Virtual Machine

If you open Disk Management on the VM, the USB drive will appear like a normal disk. You can manage the disk like any other hard disk on your PC.

To bring it online, right-click it and select Online. Then, initiate the disk, create a partition and format it as normal.

Conclusion

Accessing an external USB drive connected to a Hyper-V host from a guest VM is as simple as the 3-steps described in this guide. Firstly, you must connect the drive to the host and set it as offline via Disk Management.

After that, connect the drive to the VM as a physical disk via the Hyper-V Manager console. Finally, log in to the VM and manage the drive as you would any other drive connected to computer.

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