VMware Player getting error unmountable boot volume (unmountable_boot_volue 0x000000ED)

My current problem is that I recently got a new VM from a data center and I need to run it on my machine. However, Windows comes up with the bsod (blue screen of death) with a Stop error of unmountable_boot_volue 0x000000ED. I’ve been looking for several options on the internet that range from making this Hard Drive IDE instead of SCSI, trying to load the SCSI drives, editing the virtual machine definition file and running ‘chkdsk /r’ from the command prompt.

I’ve tried all the options, however running ‘chkdsk /r’ is a bit of a tricky thing to do. I tried doing a safe mode with command prompt but it stops at some CLASSPNP.sys file and then gives me the bsod displayed below:

VMWare Player UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME STOP 0X000000ED

So, how to run that command prompt under those circumstances? I even tried using the repair mode that is one of the options of the F8 menu and nothing. After a while I found a Win 7 bootable media, went to the repair options and finally got a Command Prompt. At this point I tried chkdsk /r, which unfortunately ended in an unspecified error. I’m still trying to find a solution that would work and I’m hopeful some combination of options for chkdsk will do the trick.

Update:

It turns out the image came out of vSphere and in order to share it the ‘universal’ Open Virtualization Format was used. For some reason VMware Player and Workstation do not like this format. I was told to download the OVFTool (You can download the tool here: OVFTool Download link) and convert back from OVF to the .VMX format. After that the behavior exhibited was a normal loading Windows symbol followed by a dark screen. At that point I tried Safe Mode again and this time it recognized the installed operating system and I was able to log in. I proceeded to uninstall all the devices that seemed VMWare specific including the SCSI controllers, the HD, some VMware bus, network card, etc. and rebooted the system again in safe mode. After it re-installed the drivers I rebooted into the mode that allows for unsafe drivers and voilà the VM machine was up and running again!