Gentoo Linux with Win2000 as a virtual machine. can't open pen-drive in Win
 

I can mount the dvd rom and the floppy and the USB pendrive in linux but when I power up Win 2000 as a virtual machine using "VM Ware" software it reads the floppy, dvd but not the USB pendrive. Do pendrives work under VM ware? or is Win 2000 to old to recognize pendrives?

Assuming you're referring to VMware Workstation, you can do one of two things;

1. Mount up the USB stick on your Linux distro, then "share" the filesystem to the VMware instance.

2. "Free" the USB stick from the Linux distro, then the VMware instance should pick it up.

Basically, it depends on if you want to do things like format the USB stick from your VMware instance. If so, you'll have to go the "Option #2" route.

The easiest way is to unload the "usb-storage" module (you *do* have that as a module, and not compiled into your kernel, right? "lsmod | grep usb" to make sure....if not, start recompiling now....)

The "dirty" way will involve shutting off vold, or autofs (whichever you added to your Gentoo build), then enable/disable USB devices inside the VMware GUI for that instance.

Hope this helps!

Thanks very much xeleema, I'll give that a go.

To share some USB periferal in VMware, you have to open the menu and "check" it.