Floppies on VMware workstation FreeBSD guest

[Francisco Reyes]

Any has had any success with getting floppies to work on VMware desktop 7 on 
a FreeBSD guest?

Did the following to prepare the floppy

#Create empty floppy image
dd if=/dev/zero bs=1k count=1440 of=/data/tmp/boot.flp

#create md0 and point it to floppy
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /data/tmp/boot.flp -u 0

#newfs
newfs /dev/md0

#mount
mount /dev/md0 /mnt

#copy data here....

#unmount
umount /mnt

#delete md0
mdconfig -d -u 0


I am trying to create a floppy image with an install.cfg to learn how 
sysinstall automation works. The floppy gives the following error:
Error mounting floppy fd0  (/dev/fd0) on /dist : device not configured.

Just as a test I found a floopy for an old PicoBSD floppy to see if it could 
be read. It failed too. However, if the PicoBSD floppy image is first in the 
boot order it actually boots of the floppy image. Search for this issue show 
some old messages of people having simmilar problems, but given that they 
were old I wondered if the issue had been resolved.

I am aware that in VMware one can create one VM and make a template. I am 
trying to learn sysinstall automation for the times when I will need to 
install FreeBSD on a physical machine instead of a VM.

Any pointers will be greately appreciated.