The BIOS of the VMware Workstation does not support to boot from a USB drive or stick which is connected to a virtual machine.
But there is a workaround:-) Use the Plop Boot Manager. Download the latest ZIP File and extract the plpbt.iso file. This contains a CD image which starts plop boot manager. Connect the iso file as a virtual CDROM to your virtual machine.
Start the virtual machine, the Plop Boot menu appears. Select USB.
![Plop Boot Mananger Menu](http://michlstechblog.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/bootmenu1.png)
Connect the USB drive to your virtual machine and wait until its connected
![Connecting the USB Device](http://michlstechblog.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/connectusb.png)
![USB Device connected](http://michlstechblog.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/usbconnected.png)
The Plop boot manager detects the USB Drive and boot up the virtual machine.
Michael