[AceRoom]

(Psst, if you don't want to read the entire storyboard, there is a how-to list at the bottom of the post).

So here's what happened. I got the blue screen of death in Windows yesterday and it wouldn't boot up, no matter what I did. So what I finally did was ERASE THE ENTIRE WINDOWS PARTITION!!

Well, no biggie. I use Linux most of the time anyway... EXCEPT WHEN I'M SIDELOADING APPS ON MY PLAYBOOK!!! Arg, what do I do?

The only other solution that came to mind other than reinstall Windows was to use a virtual machine which had worked fabulously well with a pen drive just a few days ago. So I booted up Fedora, installed the Closed Source Version of VirtualBox (Closed source one because it generally has more features including USB support but OSE may have it too), spent some time installing Windows 7 on it and when I finally connected my Playbook to my PC, I was happy to see that VirtualBox allowed me to connect it to my Virtual Machine. The Virtual Windows recognized the device but didn't boot the virtual CDROM with the install software. I had earlier backed up those files so I tried installing them. Even after that, the drivers weren't properly installed so I installed BB Manager 7. Still no good. Looked up various tutorials on the playbook not working and none of them worked. Finally, I went to the USB settings in virtualbox and there was an option called "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller". This required me to download some extension pack on the host machine so I did that, enabled the option, booted into Virtual Windows, plugged in my playbook and lo and behold it worked! Mounted the virtual CD automatically and installed the drivers and now it's working perfectly with the virtual machine.

So here are the steps clearly for all you lazy bums who didn't want to read my story (Fine, be like that!)

1. Install Virtualbox from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
2. Make a virtual Windows machine
3. Install guest addons on the guest OS if you want a better experience
4. Power off the virtual machine
5. Under machine Settings, go to the USB
6. Check the box: Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller
7. It will tell you to install Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack. You can do so from the earlier link or this direct link: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtu...1.vbox-extpack
8. Reboot your virtual machine and plugin your Playbook
9. There should be a small usb icon at the bottom of the VirtualBox window or use the USB Devices item in one of the menu items in the menu bar. Check RIM Network Device or which ever similar item you find
10. Install the drivers automatically
11. Enjoy your virtual machine with playbook support

You can also use USB filters to automatically mount your playbook to the virtual machine instead of checking the item each time.
One more thing, for me, the Playbook was on "Automatically Detect" during the driver install and I had to put in "Connect to Windows" later on so you may need to play with this option.

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Hit thanks if this helps

[SCrid2000]

Nice tutorial For a second I thought you had a VM running on the PlayBook, which would have been beyond awesome lol.
I didn't have any problems setting up a VM on my linux partition, but I mostly just use this for sideloading on linux: PlayBook App Manager

[AceRoom]

That would have been awesome! I'll change the title to clarify it. I actually had some problems because of the USB 2.0 host which is why I thought I'd post here so in case others run into this issue, they might be able to solve it easily. Granted most people who would find this useful (Linux Users looking for a VM solution) are fairly resourceful with computers, this might just save them a couple of hours of fiddling time (Which is what it took for me to realize the issue) which could be spent on a more productive activity like booking tickets for the Dark Knight Rises.