If the drive is visible in Ubuntu, you can use command "sudo fdisk -l" to verify. If it is there, you can use application disks (or perhaps something else) to actually mount it. If you don't have "disks", you can download&install it into *buntu derivates - a good and capable application - at least with current versions of Ubuntu.
I haven't connected USB devices directly to VMs, because I'm operating from Host to Guests. For that end, you can use Shared Folders within VMware or Network Drives with Ubuntu. Drag and drop seems to be broken with later Ubuntu/VMware combinations - that was the only thing I used until version 14 of Ubuntu. Perhaps Tools is required for Shared Folders.
Some say, that Tools need to be installed before direct USB-connect works, don't know, but you might want to check this matter. Since you kind of said that it is visible on VMware level-of-things, this might not be your case.
