Hi there
did you mount these drives as NETWORK drives on your VM system.
Normally it works fine -- define say the share "D" as "shared_ D" on the HOST system -- also ensure that your user id and pasword is the same on BOTH systems.

Now you can mount the network drive either as \\host-name\shared_D or \\hosti-ipaddr\shared_d>

Ensure your firewalls allow "Network Discovery" (W7 host system) and on the XP system enable file / printer sharing.

Then it should all work fine.

Remember in the vmware environment the Virtual Machine has properties just like anothe PHYSICAL machine attached to the network.

Cheers
jimbo