VMWare won't restart! HELP!

OK, here's where I am to date:

1) Installed XP Pro via Boot Camp and loaded Mac drivers. Works great.
2) Loaded the trial version of VMWare Fusion.
3) Booted from the Boot Camp partition in Fusion-- works great!
4) Restarted MBA into OSX.
5) Started Fusion-- Boot Camp Partition-- WON'T START!

What happens is the black virtual window appears for about two seconds, then disappears. I'm not running in Unity. Even if I hurry and click on the START arrow, the window disappears. I have the VMWare icon in the Dock, and it's not running after the event.

6) Installed Windows via New XP Pro installation-- works FINE!
7) Suspended the session.
8) Rebooted into OSX
9) Launched Fusion -- XP Pro Machine -- WON'T START!

Does the same thing as I indicated in #5. If instead of starting the XP Pro machine, I hit "Settings", I see the settings menu with a ghosted image of the suspended session. But hitting the Start arrow makes the wondow go away.

I've uninstalled Fusion, removed the XP Pro Virtual Machine files, and reloaded Fusion twice, and I get the same result.

How do I resolve this? Thanks in advance for your help!

One more thing...

...after a failed attempt at launching Fusion, if I go to uninstall Fusion, it says to close Fusion first. If I try to uninstall it AGAIN, it uninstalls. At no time during the problem does Fusion show up for me to do a "Force Quit".

Hope that helps to diagnose this problem.

I think I found the problem...

I think it has to do with the external CD drive being "Connected". Once I unchecked it, the Boot Camp Partition worked. I'm reinstalling the XP Pro Virtual Machine now, and will advise...

That was it! Boy, am I a happy camper now.