If I format a virtual hard drive with gparted and then mount it, it becomes impossible to reboot the guest. Attempting to reboot hangs up with a blank screen, as though it can't find the boot medium.
Rebooting fails even after specifying the CD drive as boot device in BIOS as described here:
http://xmodulo.com/2013/08/how-to-change-the-boot-order-of-guest-vm-on-vmware-player.html