One of my VMWare Servers in Pekanbaru returned this error.

Its running VMWare Server 1.0.3 on Debian Etch. and must of been shut down improperly.

Resolving requires me to delete 2 *.WRITELOCK files within the same directory as the *.vmdk file.

$ ls
564d77ac-9f7e-2227-ad4a-45fc12749f5f.vmem
564d77ac-9f7e-2227-ad4a-45fc12749f5f.vmem.WRITELOCK
nvram
vmware-0.log
vmware-1.log
vmware-2.log
vmware.log
Windows XP Professional-f001.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f002.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f003.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f004.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f005.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f006.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f007.vmdk
Windows XP Professional-f008.vmdk
Windows XP Professional.vmdk
Windows XP Professional.vmdk.WRITELOCK
Windows XP Professional.vmsd
Windows XP Professional.vmx

after that starting the virtual machine from the VMWare MUI seems to do the trick.