My USB stick doesn't show up under Removable Devices

Dear VMware users,

I am trying to access a USB stick from a virtual machine, but I fail.

I am using VMware Server to run Linux on a borrowed laptop. The host OS is Windows Vista 32 bit with Service Pack 1, and the guest OS is Debian Lenny 32 bit with a 2.6 kernel. The usb stick has a Linux file system on it (ext3). When I plug in the stick , host Windows tells me it has to be formatted before it can be used, but that's a lie, Windows just doesn't know the file system type.

When in VMWare Server Console, I go to VM -> Removable Devices -> USB Devices, I see two devices, one AuthenTec and one Broadcom device, but not my USB stick.

What can I do to access the file system on the stick?