USB floppy not allowed in config :: Linux Host / Windows NT4 Guest

Hey folks...

I've been searching the forum and the usenet for quite some hours now, but have not been able so find a hint on how to solve the problem I'm encountering...

Preface[/b]

My company has a couple of old Windows NT servers running some proprietary software which we cannot currently upgrade to a newer version supporting a modern OS. Unfortunately, we lately are facing more and more hardware failures on these old servers, and we can't simply move on to new machines as Windows NT would not support the new hardware.

The solution seemed simple: Grab some inexpensive servers (HP Proliant ML 110 in this case), install Linux (SLES 9 SP2) and VMWare Server (1.0.1), set up a virtual machine that runs Windows NT.

Now that we have the new servers up and running, we run into the

Problem[/b]

The Proliant ML110 comes without a floppy drive (and without a floppy controller), but now a floppy drive is somehow needed on this servers.

This also seemed like an easy thing to do. We bought some USB floppy disk drives and plugged them into the servers. The devices are immediately recognized (as /dev/sdb and /dev/sg1) by linux and are fully accessible.

But when we configure this device as "floppy" device in the configuration of the virtual machine, vmware does not start the the virtual floppy. Instead, it shown an error message saying: "Could not connect to floppy "/dev/sdb". Please correct your configuration and then reattempt to connect the virtual floppy drive".

Additional Info[/b]

vmware.log contains a line:

   vmx | FLOPPYLIB-LINUX | Device /dev/sdb does not support direct access

on plugin of the device, dmesg yields:

   usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 2

   usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 3

   usb 4-2: Product: TEAC FD-05PUB

   usb 4-2: Manufacturer: TEAC

   scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

     Vendor: TEAC      Model: FD-05PUB          Rev: 3000

     Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02

   SCSI device sdb: 2880 512-byte hdwr sectors (1 MB)

   sdb: assuming Write Enabled

   sdb: assuming drive cache: write through

    sdb: unknown partition table

   Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

   Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0

   USB Mass Storage device found at 3

When we configure the device as harddisk in the virtual machines configuration (harddisk 2), vmware connects the device without complaining and Windows can read the files on the disk. Writing seems impossible so far.

From what I've read and witnessed, I do really hope that there is a solution, and any hint to what we might try next will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot - on one hand for reading this lenghty message, on the other for sheding some light into my darkness

Best regards

Patrick