12.3->13.1 x86 under VMware hangs

OpenSuse 12.3 x86 running under VMware Player 6 dual boot with XP on Windows 7 (I have some legacy programs that won't run on Win 7 that I have to run occasionally).

1) Upgrade via change in repositories and then "zypper install zypper", "zypper dup" process hangs during install of any package that calls modprobe.

2) Upgrade via download of x86 iso and boot from iso hangs when Xwindows attempts to start. Using Text Mode gets past that but then any package that calls modprobe during installation hangs.

3) Clean install of 13.1 from iso using Text Mode also hangs during any call to modprobe.

I know it's modprobe because if I switch to a text window and kill that PID, the process appears to continue but then the reboot dies due to missing partitions (Buslogic driver wasn't loaded).

The emulated SCSI adapter is the legacy Buslogic. I can't change it to LSI because Windows uses both IDE and SCSI partitions and it fails to mount the Windows drives that are hosted on the SCSI drive under LSI.

Building a new VM under VMware Player 6 installs the LSI SCSI driver and 13.1 works fine. But as noted above I can't make that change in the existing VM due to Windows XP..

NOTE: I don't HAVE to upgrade to 13.1...I just want to...