Heh... A power failure could very easily cause this problem too! 
Glad you got it resolved!
We don't have a single unified guide to config options. It's been discussed and requested a number of times, but it's a gargantuan undertaking that no-one within VMware has yet really tackled. You can try sanbarrow.com's list of VMX options, which is maintained by community ultra-guru continuum (a.k.a. Ulli).
(Minor point of correction: .vmdk is the virtual disk file, .vmx is the VM's actual config file. I'm sure you just typo'd/thinko'd it in your post.)
Cheers,
--
Darius