USB passthrough on ESXi 5 to Windows 2008 VM machines

[Gonzo1982]

I'm having an issue getting a external hard drive to pass through to a Windows 2008 VM machine.  I'm running ESXi 5.1 and have the device plugged into a USB 2.0 port.  My hosts are Proliant DL380p Gen8.

I've added the USB Controller and the USB Host Device to the machine:

When I go to Task and Event for the VM machine in Vcenter I get the following error:

I'm  at a loss for what else to try?  Everything I've found pertains to  Workstation and making sure your using a USB 2.0 port, which I am.  Any  advice would be greatly appreciated.

[spravtek]

Hi,

Did you try using any other USB devices/disks to see if that works?

[Gonzo1982]

No I haven't tried that yet.  Unfortunately, this datacenter is located in another location, so trying another USB device is a little hard right now.  I installed the current device earlier this week while I was on location.  I verified that the vsphere host knew the USB device was connected, as you seen above.  I thought I would be able to figure it out remotely.

[spravtek]

Well, VMware can be picky when it comes to supported USB devices, not saying yours doesn't work, but to be sure you should try to test with some other USB device.

More info: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102134...

Besides that there have been more reports about USB passthrough no longer working for people upgrading from 5.0 to 5.1 ... But no real solution came from it yet.

[zXi_Gamer]

One possible reason might be usb arbitrator. Make sure it is running from this link

Also, just to confirm, give lsusb to confirm that the usb device is properly detected. You can also give vmkchkdev -l  and look out for the device and confirm that passthrough is supported on that device.