Comment 4 for bug 148784

The solution to this problem can be found here:

http://www.bgevolution.com/blog/index.php/virtualbox-on-gutsy-gibbon-ubuntu-710-usb-enable/

Copied below without permission

VirtualBox on Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu 7.10: USB Enable
Posted on October 21, 2007 by nseidm1.
Categories: 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon, fstab, usb, virtualbox.

By default the USB Host system, when installed on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, is disable. To enable it is extremely simple. You can do it manually with “nano” or “gedit”. Open the following file:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

or:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

In this configuration file there is the following section:

—————————————————————————-

#
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
#mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
#domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmo$
#ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
#mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
—————————————————————————————

To enable USB support simple remove the “#” sign in from the the bottom 4 lines so that the section looks like this:

—————————————————————————————

#
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmo$
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

————————————————————————————

Don’t forget to add the following line in your /etc/fstab configuration file (this is required to successfully mount USB devices in your VirtualBox guest OS):

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0