VirtualBox: Accessing host's shared folders from guest Mac OS

To enable shared folder, while the guest OS is running you need to select Devices menu and then Insert Guest Additions CD Image... (Host + D). But, this feature does not support for guest Mac OS. To verify that, in host OS you can browse to /Applications/Virtualbox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, in my case host OS is Mac OS Mountain Lion, and you will find these files: VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe, VBoxLinuxAdditions.run, VBoxSolariesAdditions.pkg but no *.app file for Mac OS.

There is an alternative way using File Sharing service of Mac OS X. Please follow the steps below.

1). On your host machine, open Network Preferences and then Sharing to share your folder or file:

* Make sure you provide Read & Write access permission on the shared file/folder to everyone

* We gonna share it using SMB service 

2). On your guest OS, open Finder and select Go then Connect to Server... and type smb://10.0.2.2 and click Connect 

Reference
http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/virtual/faq/access_shared_folder.html

Installing Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on VirtualBox

Please follow the following steps:

1. Purchase Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion from Apple's Web Store. 

The downloaded installer should be a DMG file and when you mount it, you can see its content as in the following screenshot:

Some installer DMG file can't be mounted from Virtualbox because it contains only one file, an APP file. The APP file is used to reinstall (or do clean install) of existing Mac OS X you're currently on. You cannot use it as a bootable DVD. Hence, make sure you get the right one and I'm not sure why there are two different kinds of this file.

2. Create a new virtual machine the following settings:

- Set video memory to 60 MB
- Set RAM to more than 2048 MB, for example 2653 MB
- Create a new optical disk (CD/DVD ROM) and mount it to the installer (DMG) file. Don't forget to check Live CD/DVD checkbox
- Make the CD/DVD ROM drive is the first in boot order

3. Start the virtual machine and follow the instructions on the screen. 

There will be a screen asked you to select a disk to install the OS on but there won't be any disk to select. You need to format the virtual hard drive:
- Select Utilities then Disk Utilities... 
- Select the disk in the sidebar on the left and then click on Erase tab in the sidebar on the right
- Choose the file format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- Click Erase button
And you'll now see the disk in the "select disk" screen and then follow the instruction on the screen.

4. It will ask you to restart after the installation's finished. 

You might get an error when it starts again. You need to turn off the virtual machine and make it boot from the virtual hard disk instead of the virtual CD/DVD ROM drive.

When you boot from the virtual hard disk, you might get stuck as in the following screenshot. If it takes you too long to wait, you might need to shutdown the machine and start it again and then it should work this time.

Enabling NTFS Write Support on Mac OS

NTFS file format is recognized by default on Mac OS but you can only read from the NTFS formatted drives; you can't write to the drives. There are free and commercial packages for installing to enable NTFS write support. I chose to use Paragon, the commercial one. Some people downloaded the serial number or cracked version from www.thepiratebay.se. There are some reasons I don't use other packages:

1. Fuse for OS X and NTFS-3G (free)

The problem with this free package is my drive didn't mount sometimes.

2. Texura (commercial)

I tested it with the version 2014. It worked like a charm but there was a problem with Finder. I'm using XFinder to add multiple tab support to native Finder. While I was in dual pane mode showing two tabs in the same Finder window, I couldn't click on my NTFS drive name under Devices list in the left pane of Finder.

3. Paragon (commercial)

I've been using it (v8.0) on Mac OS Mountain Lion v10.8 and no problem at all. My One thing to note about it is it adds two file formats, Windows NT Filesystem (compressed) and Windows NT Filesystem support for you to choose when you want to erase your partition from Disk Utility. But, I couldn't erase my partition using Windows NT Filesystem. Everytime I clicked Erase button, Windows NT Filesystem (compressed) format was selected instead. However, I see no differences between these two file formats. I've read about NTFS (on Wikipedia) and there is only one NTFS, in which you can enable compression on drives, files or folders. Moreover, my NTFS drive once formatted using Texura driver appeared as NTFS (compressed) too when I browsed it in Disk Utility with Paragon driver installed.