NOTE: Before you start any of the following instructions, I assume you have already installed the Alfa AWUS036NHA drivers following the instructions at http://alfanetworkinc.blogspot.tw/2012/11/install-awus036nha-into-your-linux-box.html
SOLUTION:
My Alfa AWUS036NHA works perfect in BT5R3 hard drive install, however, I was was having difficulties getting it to work on BT5R3 in Virtualbox and VMware. Both Virtualbox and VMware are able to detect and connect to the usb Alfa AWUS036NHA (UB91C), and running lsusb shows "Atheros Communications AR9271", however, ifconfig, iwconfig, and airmon-ng do not see the wifi device! After spending a few days, off and on, trying to figure out the problem and reading so many times people saying this is a bug in Virtualbox/VMware "USB Passthrough" and statements that the AWUS036NHA will not work, I found this was not true!
The problem was that even though Virtualbox and VMware detected and connected the AWUS036NHA (UB91C), and the host was supposedly disconnected from the device even using ifconfig wlan0 down, in all actuality the host was still loading the driver and that was the reason it was not showing up in wireless devices in the virtual machine.
The easy solution? disable the host from loading the Atheros driver:
On the host, edit the blacklist...
nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
simply add the following anywhere in the blacklist.conf file:
blacklist ath9k_htc
blacklist ath9k_hw
blacklist ath
Save the changes (CTRL + O, then CTRL +X), reboot the host, login and start the BackTrack5 Virtual Machine, open a terminal, type iwconfig or airmon-ng and you should see your Alfa is finally working:
wlan0 Atheros AR9271 ath9k [phy0]
__________
Now on to my next problem.. iwconfig is showing that my AWUS036NHA is only running at Tx-Power=20 dBm (100mw)!? How to force BackTrack to change regulatory domain to BO (Bolivia) to enable unrestricted Tx-Power=30 dBm (1000mw)
