Need to non-exclusive lock on devices or better mod manager

[jsnorman]

I am using VMWare workstation 5. Under VMWare, I can access usb devices (which consist of a printer, my Palm handheld, and my various MP3 devices). HOWEVER, once the appropriate linux module is loaded, Gentoo insists on taking exclusive control of all devices under that module and VMware cannot access the device. This is especially problematic because several modules control multiple devices (e.g, usb-storage).

For example, I have usb-storage to control my flash reader and removeable disk drive. Once I load usb-storage (or hotplug loads it) I can no longer access my mp3 devices (which are also controlled by usb-storage) from within vmware. I cannot rmmod usb-storage without losing access to the flash reader and removable drive. Blacklisting (in hotplug) does not help because I WANT gentoo to automatically load usb-storage at least for my flash and removeable drives, but not (necessarily) for the mp3 player.

What I need is a way (maybe using udev rules?) to tell gentoo NOT to use a particular module (say usb-storage) with a particular piece of hardware (say my Mp3 player) even though it will load and attach to the other hardware. I also need to be able to manually override this in case I want to use the device from within Linux.

Alternatively, maybe there is a way to keep the modules from exclusively locking the hardware?

I am using Gentoo ~amd64 2.6.12-gentoo-r6, with hotplug and coldplug plus of course udev (under 2005 profile, world updates applied through yesterday)

Ideas?