After trying a bunch of things on my problem of accessing a physical xp installation from my vmware server inside my 10.3 install, the final conclusion is that it can not be done. Suse 10.3 presents my hda1partition as sda1 to vmware and thus to all the virtual machines i can set up thru vmware, yet a dual boot configuration maintains the ide character of the hard drive. Thus, when booting from a dual boot, the doze partition knows it is an ide, when i try to access it thru vmware doze is being told it is a scsi!!!!! installing vmware's scsi driver allows booting from vmware, but it disables booting directly! trying to play tricks with hardware profiles and dual boot drive config is a catch 22 nightmare of doze impossibilities, as is changing a laptop main drive to scsi, so i gave up. next time i have a free day i will put back 10.2 on the laptop and stick to real hda's and sda's. thanks to all who helped:) d. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org