I'm running SUSE 9.0 for AMD64: # uname -a Linux linux 2.4.21-201-smp #1 SMP Wed Feb 18 19:17:53 UTC 2004 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I installed VMware 4.5 & configured it with vmware-config.pl: # rpm -qa | fgrep -i vmware VMwareWorkstation-4.5.0-7174 I went to the dev directory and linked sr0 to cdrom # ls -l cdrom lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Feb 26 02:08 cdrom -> sr0 I have no trouble accessing fd0 and cdrom from a command line with media in them: # dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/null count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out # dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/null count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out When I start the virtual machine, it says fd0 doesn't seem to be a floppy drive and that I can start the virtual machine without a floopy drive. When the boot proceeds gets to the cdrom, an oops message from the kernel appears and to get things back to normal, I have to restart the host system (dual Opteron 240) If I remove the cdrom from the virtual machine definition, the boot sequence makes it to a PXE boot; there's no more Oops. QUESTION: How can I give the virtual machine access to a floppy drive and CDROM (I have an NEC BD2500 DVD-RW/ CD-RW)?