long time ago i found a "trick" try it (since i dont have vista yet) boot to windows 2003 cd
format the drive then exit
boot to vista cd and use that drive to install
let me know if it works
thanks

Yep, that sounds like a good idea.

For the topic creator...

Check these 2 links out, one details the install process with a small bit of information on a problem like yours.

The second link is the knowledgebase article on it.

http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/guestos_longhorn.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1688

Does the disk show, but only show it as being 0 in size?
Or does it simply show nothing at all for available drives? (Im guessing the procedure is like XP install because I've never used Vista/Longhorn)

FYI, I got a blue screen in Vista setup when I used the Win2k3 CD to format the partition with NTFS. Formatting it with FAT worked fine after Vista setup reformatted it to NTFS.

Here's been my successful format:

Prerequisites:
-- Start up the machine and go into the BIOS (F2) and make the CDROM drive boot first. VMWare gets confused when a floppy is in when it starts booting. It skips from the floppy boot to the network boot without ever making it to the CDROM.

1. Run standard Vista install
2. When you get to the point where it asks for a drive, click load driver and use the VMWare SCSI driver.
3. Create the partion. It will say there's a partition with space but the drive says 'Unavailable' to the right.
4. Click on format, it will be unsuccessful, since you can't click on the 'Next' button.
5. Cancel out and reboot.
6. Follow the same process this time except don't bother with partitioning, just format and it will be successful.

I just ran into the same problem as the OP.

I am using Workstation 5, with Longhorn as the selected OS, using 20GB disk and LSI Logic SCSI.

The initial boot will not let me format the drive but will let me create a partition. Reboot again and now that the partition is already created it let me format. Installation is in progress now.

Note: You don't need to add a SCSI driver via the floppy since the installer sees the drive just fine.

Qui

Are you using the AMD NIC or VMXNET?

Here is some info from:
http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/guestos_longhorn.html

Ethernet Adapter in Certain Longhorn Builds
The AMD Ethernet card driver included with certain Longhorn builds — including 4074 and possibly others — does not work correctly. To use networking in these Longhorn guest operating systems, you must switch to the vmxnet network adapter. A driver for this adapter is included in VMware Tools.

VMware Workstation or VMware ACE on a Windows host: Use a text editor such as Notepad to edit the configuration (.vmx) file for your Longhorn virtual machine. Add the following line:

Ethernet[n].virtualDev = "vmxnet"

Replace [n] with the number of the Ethernet adapter. The first Ethernet adapter is number 0, so the line for that adapter is

Ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet"

Include a line for each Ethernet adapter configured for the virtual machine. You may install VMware Tools either before or after changing the virtual network adapter.

Actually, I got the AMD NIC to work.

What I did was, I went into Device Manager and updated the nic driver(was originally in yellow state) and pointed it to the VMWare Tools CD.

Qui