Access to raw devices

Can anyone tell me how I can access raw devices in vista.

Currently vista is stopping me doing legitimate work on my PC that I
could do with ease under windows XP.

The things I am trying to do is.

Use syslinux to make a USB attached compact flash card bootable.

Access the said USB stick through vmware as a raw physical disk.

Both of these are valid things, and I dont see why I get access denied
all the time. I have tried it with elevated privileges and through the
administrator account with no success.

I'd just like to turn this feature off.

Graham