Hello.
I got plan9 running in vmware server some days ago.
I ran into the same (and many other) problem as you.
As I remember the problem is the virtual IDE CD-drive. Turn it off or switch
it to SCSI.

-Patrick Kristiansen.

On 6/16/07, john@csplan9.rit.edu <john@csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:
>
> Okay, I don't particularly like to drag up an old topic, but I can't
> seem to find anything really helpful in the archives.
> I just downloaded VMWare Server and the latest Plan 9 ISO,
> and with the help of "echo hwaccel off > /dev/vgactl" I was
> able to install Plan 9. However, when I try to boot the machine
> from the hard drive image, nothing seems to happen after
> "init: starting /bin/rc". When I try to specify root from tcp,
> everything stops after I've entered the username. Now, this
> last part could be simply because I have not correctly configured
> my CPU/auth server; if somebody could help me figure that out,
> I'd be obliged.
>
> So, any suggestions? I'd really prefer to boot it using my remote
> fileserver for root. Please no "Just get a real computer" replies,
> because I'm very short on room and currently unable to
> mess with the laptop I'm using. I've tried running in qemu
> under Windows, it's far from ideal.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>